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Icy Trees


GFisher

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The large Ash tree in my front yard came down today.  I was amazed at the range of cost estimates for removal.  It may be partly due to demand, but I got the feeling the older, more established names generally charge higher prices.  One did offer to price match competitors, but I figure that is a move of too little too late.  I went with one that was half the price of that high dollar one and it included stump grinding.  

Now will spend the summer figuring out what I want to replace it with in the fall.  Definitely something with a longer lifespan than 40 years.

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I finally got an arborist to look at my trees. Sometime in September there will be 4 less ash junipers (aka cedars) in Austin. 

I’ve got two trees with major concern.  One is my Spanish oak which has boring beetles in several branches and needs a lot of care.  The other is a live oak in the front that has frost damage from February.  I need to spray the wound with Sevin or another carboryl insecticide.  Usually you trim the branches with the damage but this is in the trunk.  Keep an eye out for something like this with sap coming out:

 

 

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It is already looking worse than last time in my hood. Branches were falling left and right between about 6 and 10, it seems to have stabilized somewhat. At least 2 neighbors had sizable branches fall on their cars, probably just big scratches I think, the leafy parts hit first to break the falls. No major damage that I can see yet. Fingers crossed. 

 

Hopefully not too much trail damage. Some areas don't seem too bad.

Edited by GFisher
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It's misting on us in south Austin and it's slightly below freezing. The streets are fine but I believe the trees are still collecting ice. I was just helping to clear a road blocking tree a street over from my house. As I was chain sawing the fallen tree, a huge thing that fell over from the roots,  a big branch snapped and fell down across the street from where we were working. No warning noise or anything. DO NOT go walking on your favorite trail yet! Or under any trees on your "look at the neighborhood" walks.

Our power was out from 3:40 am until just now, 2:10. I've been watching Austin Energy's Power Outage site. The number of customers without power has risen steadily all day. It is currently at the lowest percentage (69.9) "total customers with power" that I've seen. This means that trees are still falling. 

It's going to take a LOT of work to get the trails cleared. A lot. I agree that it will be worse than the last one. That one was mostly snow.

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My on life support from snowpocalypse ash tree has been steadily losing big limbs all day. Seems to be getting worse in last 2 hours. The other ash that was in ok shape just started having limbs break and hang up in the last hour. It also has one big trunk that cracked and is pressing on another. Think they’re both goners now. 

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A couple ash junipers in my yard that survived snowpocalypse got totally splattered today.  A cedar elm had most of the top break off.  It's carnage among the cedar elms in the neighborhood.  Even the live oaks have lost a few big branches. 

I never thought it would come to this, but I ordered a curbside chainsaw from ho depot in case they sell out and all the tree guys are too busy forever after this.

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Yeah our neighborhood is noticeably worse from 2021. Unsure if it is because they still are weak/ not fully recovered or if last time they were so cold they were literally frozen and this time they spongy... We've been lucky so far. 1 of our minor trees lost a 1/3 of all  limbs and 2 of our major trees have lost minor limbs. Looking down the street seems every 3rd house has ~1/2 a tree down. 

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Worse here also.  We escaped major tree damage last time.  Because of construction on our backyard and wanting to add solar panels at some point, we had the arborist and the company do what they needed for the trees that needed help, and we trimmed a bunch off our cedar elms close to the house.

I wondered if much colder temps make the branches less flexible and hence the leverage is not as much?

this is our largest hackberry.  Far from our house thankfully.  It’s a big trunk.CDC2B04B-7567-47D1-ABBC-01AA99DD535C.thumb.jpeg.3f5dab25d3de6621b7056b0053a636ac.jpeg

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our live oak is losing a lot of limbs. hopefully our *new* roof isn't taking any damage, but I've heard some hit and bounce off.

I wonder if the years of drought have taken their toll. the ice on the branches I've pulled off was thick! branches I would expect to weigh 15 pounds had to be hoisted and dragged away with both hands.

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2 hours ago, AustinBike said:

Well, our block was, a little, um, interesting this morning.

69695552428__A52D9700-566E-484E-9EA8-701F1B3D971B.thumb.jpeg.39f6993e55124a061d31c63e7dc0fed1.jpeg

Hit a neighbor's car but did no damage luckily. 

I've recharged my chainsaw batteries 3 times today helping neighbors clear their driveways and front walks.

This looks SO similar to a tree two blocks over from my house. Saw it on my "look at the neighborhood walk". Went back with my chainsaw to help make the street passable. As we were working a huge branch fell from a tree across the street. No warning noise at all. Just "BOOM." Don't walk under ANY trees right now!

Just walking down the street was amazing. Creaking trees, rattling ice, snapping branches. Amazing. This Icepocalypse is going to be WAY worse than the Snowpocalypse.

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17 hours ago, AustinBike said:

Well, our block was, a little, um, interesting this morning.

Do you have dense, clayey soil in your 'hood?  That looks a huge tree (cedar elm?) that never put down deep roots to anchor it.  When I lived on Larry Lane in East Austin, we had incredibly dense clay underlying about 6 inches of soil. The next door neighbor's tree did a similar topple during a wind storm - huge cedar elm with no deep roots. 

Not too much damage here at our house. We have no big trees, a few of the smaller trees lost a branch or two, nothing major.  The next door neighbor's live oak has a long horizontal branch that is now lying about a fourth of the way into our front yard.  It will be major cleanup.  It hasn't fallen completely - just split off from the trunk.  If I get nosy I'll peek over the fence. Their back yard is a forest of live oaks and cedar elms.  I  was still hearing "crack, whump" in the wee hours coming from their yard. 

 

Edited by June Bug
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image.thumb.jpg.363b44dc520821d4e92278952ed807c6.jpgAbout 5 years ago I built 1.5 miles of hiking trail behind our house on the hillside above Twin Creeks golf course. Great way to chill out after work, stretch the legs, and pick up a ton of expensive golf balls. It took 40-60 hours over several months with loppers and a hand saw to complete. After snowpocalype, it took another 20 hours to reclaim maybe a mile of the original trail.  Can’t even imagine what it looks like today.  Probably time to admit defeat. 

Mother Nature 1

Docscotty 0

Edited by Docscotty
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My back yard looks like a deranged banzai forest.

PXL_20230202_133859535.thumb.jpg.729eee7ea5bc109270852492dd28f7e1.jpg

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We ran a few errands this evening and there's a huge tree just resting on a major power line. By 6 p.m., several traffic signals were flashing red or just plain dark. I had to swerve around trees in the street in a few places durning a  5 mile drive.

I recommend NOT going out for another few days, if you can avoid it. It's like a silent hurricane swept across the whole region and it's going to take a while for utility crews to clean it up.

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On 2/1/2023 at 6:38 PM, AntonioGG said:

Worse here also.  We escaped major tree damage last time.  Because of construction on our backyard and wanting to add solar panels at some point, we had the arborist and the company do what they needed for the trees that needed help, and we trimmed a bunch off our cedar elms close to the house.

I wondered if much colder temps make the branches less flexible and hence the leverage is not as much?

this is our largest hackberry.  Far from our house thankfully.  It’s a big trunk.CDC2B04B-7567-47D1-ABBC-01AA99DD535C.thumb.jpeg.3f5dab25d3de6621b7056b0053a636ac.jpeg

Yeah, my in-laws are up the hill from you. We went over there to clear some limbs. It looked like a war zone trying to get to their house. With as bad as our neighborhood was, it looks like in your area it was 10X worse. Headed back up there this morning to get more cutting done now that my batteries are recharged for my chainsaw.

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One of these tree limbs destroyed my back. Not because it fell on me, but to strained it trying to cut and move a large one that was leaning on my house. Just got back from Airrosti and I feel a bit better.

Hoping to be back to full strength in time for Hill Country Hundy.

Edited by mack_turtle
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