Sad to Say Goodbye to My Shade Elm

At first I thought that our big elm, one of a pair in our backyard, was just in need of some TLC.

We’d already pruned it back once, hoping the thinning would do the old girl some good. We’d still have plenty of shade and winter wind cover.

Then we were hit by that 80 mph wind storm in June. A few weeks later, our tree was noticeably weaker. I thought, hoped really, that there was just damage that could be taken care of with more trimming.

No such luck. When I asked the tree service guy about trimming, he laughed. “No. It’s got Dutch Elm. It’s dead.”

So we set an appointment to put her to rest – ashes to ashes, sawdust to sawdust – on 9/15/10. And by the time the Huber tree service guys arrived, there was no doubt in my mind that the diagnosis was accurate. The twin elm in the alley is still lush and only starting to show its fall colors. The one marked for death was leafless and lifeless, except for the squirrels and spiders.

Still, she did not go quietly. Chainsaws, wood chippers and cursing workers (all in good humor) filled the neighborhood for nearly four hours.

From the pix, you can see that there was one tree climber in the tree to guide the ropes and saw the branches, one by one. Two to three others on the ground would carefully lower each cut branch down, saving our fence, garage and neighbor’s garage. Then the pieces were cut down again and fed into the commercial chipper.

When it was all over, the fence row stump was pulverized and the crew did a thorough cleanup of the area, including sweeping off the top of my garage and repairing the fence.

I’ll miss the shade of the elm.

But maybe next year I’ll have a better tomato yield now that there’s more sun beating down on our backyard.