Cutting Down an American Beech Tree
Maintaining a healthy landscape sometimes means cutting down trees.
I always feel badly when trees are cut down. Trees are extremely important to our environment - they are the world’s single largest source of breathable oxygen, they absorb carbon dioxide and potentially harmful gasses, and they create an ecosystem to provide needed habitat and food for birds and other animals. However, trees do not live forever, and occasionally they need to be removed. Last week, one of my American Beech trees lost some branches in a storm, but this tree was also sick and dying of disease, so it had to come down.
Here are some photos - enjoy.
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- The American beech tree is considered both a shade tree and an ornamental tree. They can grow to a height of 50 to 70 feet and a spread of around 40 feet at maturity. This American beech tree, located in my American beech tree grove near my Boxwood Allee, has not been looking good for some time. It is has been suffering from the beech leaf disease that is spreading rapidly through the Northeast killing both mature American beeches and saplings. Look how bare it is – healthy beech trees would be filled with leaves this time of year.
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- A few of the branches were also damaged in a recent storm, so I instructed my outdoor grounds crew to take the entire tree down.
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- Pasang is our resident arborist. He is very strong and very skilled at taking down many of the smaller trees around the farm. Here, he begins with some of the smaller branches closer to the ground.
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- As all the branches are cut, they are neatly placed in piles, so they are easy to remove later.
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- Pasang then starts on some of the higher branches – always securing himself to the tree with the proper safety equipment.
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- Each long section of tree is cut by chainsaw. This tree grows at a slow to medium rate, with height increases of anywhere from less than a foot to about 24-inches per year.
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- And one by one, the branches fall to the ground.
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- Pasang stops for a quick photo. It’s a warm day at the farm, but we’ve made it through last week’s heat wave. Temperatures this week are only expected in the 80s.
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- Here, one can see what the leaf disease does to the leaves. It causes parts of leaves to turn leathery and withered and then kills a tree within six to 10 years.
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- In the light, the leaves also show bands – a clear sign of the beech leaf disease. An invasive nematode is believed to be responsible for this disease. The microscopic worms are present in the leaves and buds of infected beech trees.
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- The bark of the American beech is gray and mostly smooth. American beech is often found on moist slopes, in ravines, and atop moist hammocks.
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- Here is a pile of thicker branches waiting to be discarded. Because the tree is diseased, we cannot save any of the cut lumber – the entire tree will be thrown away.
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- Here’s a pile of smaller branches also neatly piled nearby.
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- Pasang works one section at a time, working his way from the highest point cutting branches and carefully moving down to the ground.
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- Here he is close to the base of the tree. Almost all the upper branches are now cut off.
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- Here is a look at the wood of the tree. Beech is a hard, strong, and close-grained wood.
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- Pasang cuts some of the fallen branches into smaller, manageable pieces. He is using his favorite tool – a STIHL in-tree gas-powered chainsaw. It is lightweight and easy to use when up in the trees.
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- And here is the beech tree once it has been emptied of all its top branches – now only the trunk remains.
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- Here is the site after the trunk is cut down. It is always sad to see trees go, but this tree was in poor condition and would have likely succumbed to the disease. It had to come down.
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- This remaining stump and the roots will also be removed, so a new tree can be planted in its place.
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- My outdoor grounds crew foreman, Chhiring, hauls some of the tree branches away to be discarded.
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- Thanks Pasang for taking down the tree. Pasang takes each section to its designated pile. Another big outdoor project done and checked off our list.
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