When we bought this house in 2000, one think we liked about it was how shady the lot was. There were three big oak trees (one with a twinned trunk) in our yard and another two in the neighbor's yard near our house, mostly white oaks (Quercus alba), but also one Spanish oak (Quercus falcata). Also in the neighbor's lot (which we ended up buying in 2012; it had originally been connected to our house until around 1983 when the house was sold but the buyer didn't want the side lot) was a large American cherry (Prunus serotina), a white pine (Pinus strobus), American holly (Ilex opaca), and two nice-sized hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis). We had a few smaller hemlocks closer to the house and (in both our main lot and the side lot) a few Japanese maples (Acer palmatum), dogwoods (Cornus florida), a redbud (Cercis canadensis), a non-fruiting mullberry (Morus ?) or two, and a fig tree (Ficus carica cv. Marseilles) that we were told was Thomas Jefferson's favorite variety.
Over the years we've added a few apples (Malus domestica cv. GoldRush, Fuji, and Honeycrisp), pawpaw (Asimina triloba), swamp magnolia (Magnolia virginiana), and crepe myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica), among other trees, including a few volunteers that we're letting stick around.
Not all of these trees have lasted for us though. A small hemlock in front of the house was root-bound and fell over after a long wet period. The GoldRush produced one apple before we lost it in a drought year. Evelin didn't like the white pine so it was cut down after we bought the side lot. The fig suffered a similar fate. A few of the long-lived volunteers (a small American cherry and a mulberry or two) were also taken out at various times. The redbud was dropping limbs and splitting so we had it taken down, but didn't remove the stump — and it has regrown itself as an oddly tall bush that looks pretty funny in the winter.
One of the white oaks (not one next to house fortunately) succumbed to a disease or something that has been hitting trees in the area and the big American cherry was also deemed to be dead or dying, so both were taken out at the same time.
Our Harry Lauder's Walking Stick (Corylus avellana cv. Contorta), a type of hazelnut tree, also succumbed to an infection that's killed a few others of its kind in the neighborhood. It's a shame because it was really interesting looking — there's a reason it's also known as a contorted filbert or corkscrew hazel — and because it was one of their favorite trees when C was little.
This morning, Evelin went to let Lucy out on the deck when she noticed that one of the hemlocks in the side yard had fallen over.
We'd noticed that it was looking poorly this summer. There were some bare branches and areas where the needles looked dry or had fallen off, and Celeste and I had noticed what looked like boring holes and weeping sap at one point. If it had been an ash tree, I would have guessed we had a problem with emerald ash borers (Agrilus planipennis). I had seen scale on the tree before, but not hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae), which is a growing problem in the area. It's possible we had a stressed tree and a hemlock borer (Melanophila fulvoguttata) issue ... but we likely won't know for sure and can only hope the issue was confined to the one tree.
It was a good tree. Quin used to spend a lot of time in her hugglepod, which hung from it, and at one point early on we had a bird feeder in it. I remember one night waking up and looking out our bedroom window to see a big possum staring in at us from that tree. It was also the quickest route for squirrels to reach the roof and infiltrate the attic.
Luckily when it fell it didn't only landed on some bushes and didn't hit anything major, but now we need to clean things up. I'd been trying to grow a bunch of ferns at the bottom of the hemlocks, so we'll see how they adapt to the new environment. I doubt we'll try to plant a new tree in the same spot, but who knows what time will bring.
