groundpounder

Cottonwood and silver maple are the problem trees here. Maples begin the decay process early in their lives mostly due to hail damage. Target cankers on top of the limbs can make for hazards that can not be seen from the ground. Have seen limbs fall out just from the weight of rain on the foilage. In the '70s and '80s the suburbs grew out from the city in leaps and bounds. We live on the high plains, so there were no trees to provide shade for the new homes. How do you get some quick shade? You plant cottonwoods of course, preferably two or three feet from the house. Fast forward to 2007 and they are all beginning to decline. Dead cottonwoods everywhere. A boon for the low bidder. Most worrisome are the ones that are still hanging in there. Codoms and multi stems seem to be the rule rather than the exception, and there is root crown decay caused by thirty years of the irrigation system squirting the base of the tree. Add to that our frequent early or late snow storms while the leaves are on the trees (which I suspect has something to do with why there are no native shade trees here) and the possibility for large branch drop goes way up. A woman was killed a year or two ago while shoveling snow under a cottonwood. If you have a cottonwood or a very old silver maple on your property, this arborist rarely brings good news.