Anyone who looked at the trunks could see why the trees were dying; they were bleeding to death.
Maybe a dozen years ago, the folks who owned this house before us planted five evergreen trees under the utility wires in the backyard. For years they screened the back fence and hid the wires. They grew so tall that they cost the rest of the garden a lot of light, and while they were still small enough, we took two of them down ourselves.
Two years ago the remaining cypresses caught an air-bourne fungus that spreads under their bark. They began dying slowly. We tried nursing them along, but the fungus is invariably fatal.
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Anyone who looked at the trunks could see why the trees were dying; they were bleeding to death. |
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Anything we left under the trees became spotted with sticky drops of sap. When I walked back there, rocks stuck to the soles of my shoes. |
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Long stalactites of cypress blood hung from the diseased branches. |
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We hoped for a miracle cure that never happened.
Then in a windy storm last winter, the cypress trees began leaning.
One rested against the back fence, while the other listed ominously toward the neighbor's house.
(That redwood on the right isn't suseptible to the fungus that attacks Leyland cypress.) |
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We talked with an arborist.
The trees had to come out before they toppled over and damaged some neighbor's property.
The arborist marked the cypresses with orange plastic tape. |
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