Decline of a Giant

rangitata

This Moreton Bay Fig began a slow decline over a number of years to the point that removal was the only safe option to consider given its location adjacent to heritage listed building and a public pathway.
I first worked on this tree back in 1994 and have seen photos of it in its full glory that were taken in 1864. Its sad to see a massive tree such as this decline due to a fungal infection (samples were taken and identified back in 2009) but this tree saw sunrises over its estimated 400 year life.

The tree was slowly cut back to sounder timber over the last several years as the canopy slowly declined. It finally reached the point where a 130 ton capacity crane was brought in to facilitate its removal.

The final 3m long section of the main leader pushed the crane scales to 5500kg.

The stump now stands at 8m in height to allow for a creeping vine to cover it.

It was sad and big job. Cheers

May 2009


November 2009


May 2011

Attached Thumbnails

           

   

Eric Frei

This tree was a monster, huge, biggest I have seen in suburban Brisbane yet.

Phelinus noxious got it.

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Drouin Tree Service

Damm thats huge,pic with you on top of the stump really shows the size.

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Drouin Tree Services | Excavator Hire - Drouin and SE Gippsland | Landclearing Melbourne

phill ellison

awesome photos, cheers for showing them

redmower

Rangi...

nice illustration of a sad story. Still that is the cycle of life for each tree.

Did I read this bit correctly: "and have seen photos of it in its full glory that were taken in 1864."

rangitata

First a clarification, the arborist on the stump isn't me it's one of our climbers who did the majority of the removal.

Redmower, I will check the date of the photo the next time I am in the area, but I am pretty sure that's the date I was told. This site was one of the first sugar cane farms in Australia with the building beside built in 1858. It was huge even then

Cheers

TrevMcRev

She was a biggun alright

Good thing it didn't have to come down to ground level....LOT of extra work in that!

Bowani Siam

What a whopper! That pic with the inset close-up is a great scale shot too.

I know it's a long shot, but is there any chance you could locate/scan in the pics of it back in it's Glory Days of the 19th century?

Also, what creeping vine is gonna make it its home?

Great pics!!!!

dcarter

Nice PICS/ Thanks for posting. Hard to believe you can work on a living thing, or in this case, a dying thing, that had people looking at it before there were cars, chainsaws, TV's, phones. WOW. Strong work fellas. Looked like a full day's work.