ferret
New Member
We recently bought an old house in Western New York. The front yard is fairly small and is dominated by four enormous trees: two 60' basswoods and two slightly smaller maples. All but one of the maples is on our property; they were part of a street planting and are estimated to be 75 years old.
We paid an ISA-certified arborist $35 to give us some advice on the trees. He told us that, if they were his trees, he'd remove them all (est. $5000, although he is not equipped to do it himself) or have them all topped. I was disappointed in this opinion because I've read the ISA's own warnings about topping trees. Wouldn't topping them increase the risk of danger?
As far as health, the neighbor's maple is decaying at the bottom (he has agreed to pay for his part of any removal cost), the other maple has a large branch hanging over our house but is otherwise healthy, the tallest basswood seems healthy, the other was damaged by a storm and is missing a great deal of crown growth. It also has some openly decaying areas and dead branches.
Should I pay another certified arborist for a second opinion, taking the risk that they too will suggest topping? Or is the situation so obviously a danger to the house that I should start saving pennies to have them removed some day?
The basswoods are about 16' from the house. On the other side is a four-lane county road. I would rather not remove the trees, but if one of them fell it is tall enough to cut our house in half or block all four lanes.
Because of the crowded logistics of the situation, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to remove trees selectively. The are all in a row (neighbor's maple, our maple, healthy basswood, decaying basswood).
To be honest, I wish I'd had an arborist look over the trees before we bought the house. I would have had the sellers take 5k off the price!
Any thoughts or suggestions? I'd really appreciate it.
We paid an ISA-certified arborist $35 to give us some advice on the trees. He told us that, if they were his trees, he'd remove them all (est. $5000, although he is not equipped to do it himself) or have them all topped. I was disappointed in this opinion because I've read the ISA's own warnings about topping trees. Wouldn't topping them increase the risk of danger?
As far as health, the neighbor's maple is decaying at the bottom (he has agreed to pay for his part of any removal cost), the other maple has a large branch hanging over our house but is otherwise healthy, the tallest basswood seems healthy, the other was damaged by a storm and is missing a great deal of crown growth. It also has some openly decaying areas and dead branches.
Should I pay another certified arborist for a second opinion, taking the risk that they too will suggest topping? Or is the situation so obviously a danger to the house that I should start saving pennies to have them removed some day?
The basswoods are about 16' from the house. On the other side is a four-lane county road. I would rather not remove the trees, but if one of them fell it is tall enough to cut our house in half or block all four lanes.
Because of the crowded logistics of the situation, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to remove trees selectively. The are all in a row (neighbor's maple, our maple, healthy basswood, decaying basswood).
To be honest, I wish I'd had an arborist look over the trees before we bought the house. I would have had the sellers take 5k off the price!
Any thoughts or suggestions? I'd really appreciate it.