What a shame to loose nice big trees like that..
... no idea about Pin Oaks ... since we don't have those in the mountains of NC. ... If you call Billy Bob's tree Service, he is going to tell you it's gonna fall any minute now and he'll cut it for you for $2K!
I thought there was a natural tendency for some trees to have hollow trunks? ..or maybe that's another tree specie, and not oaks?
I read about the Chestnut blight not too long ago. Similarly, our area lost vast numbers of Elm to Dutch Elm disease. I saw an old photo from the turn of the century showing what a canopy of Elms looked like over a neighborhood street - gorgeous tall cathedral of branches way up over the street, looked fantastic. Too bad they're gone.
Not much drought up here in the NEast. In our area of upstate NY, trees seem be getting bigger and bigger. No logging anymore in the river valleys, and trees in housing developments built in the '40s and 50s are getting very mature. Besides the ever-present Maples, our property has Pin Oak, Ash and Black Locust... they are giants, all of them over 100ft tall and tough as nails. The leaves from the Pin Oak are like leather. Locust got hit by lightning some 6 years ago, and only now is one limb showing deterioration. I planted an American Beech, and an Ash as shade trees for the driveway where I spend a lot of time..
..anyway, I love our trees, but boy, raking the leaves get to be a chore... thankfully we have teenage sons to do that!
- Art
