Would you prefer developers kept large mature trees around the houses? (corn, north)

[ontheroad]

I would say one of the two things I love, and don't want to live without are trees.

Here's my former place in VT (200 acres of farmland):



And here is where I am now:

[TnHilltopper]

Beautiful OTR and is that a night blooming sirrus <sp> leaf I see on the left of the first picture?

My land was logged out about 20 or so years ago but thankfully it was land that was select cut and they managed to leave a few stately Oaks, Maple, Ash, and Hickory.

I never have understood why the practice of some folks taking a new piece of forested land, cutting every single tree, then planting grass with a few Bradford Pears... ugh the inhumanity of it.

I understand folks needing pasture land, but to hack down a forest in favor of grass. Egads

[deegers]

Originally Posted by TnHilltopper

Beautiful OTR and is that a night blooming sirrus <sp> leaf I see on the left of the first picture?

My land was logged out about 20 or so years ago but thankfully it was land that was select cut and they managed to leave a few stately Oaks, Maple, Ash, and Hickory.

I never have understood why the practice of some folks taking a new piece of forested land, cutting every single tree, then planting grass with a few Bradford Pears... ugh the inhumanity of it.

I understand folks needing pasture land, but to hack down a forest in favor of grass. Egads

here here (raising glass). I agree with you. In high school, I watched them tear down this foresty area by my house in horror. Put up these huge homes on small lots and then, plant some small trees. I ask, why plant trees at all?? tree killers..

And they wonder why we have such a critter problem. They keep taking their homes away so they have to move into establish human neighborhoods. Watch a pack of coyotes roaming the streets in the middle of the night where they never were before, gave me a sad yet eerie feeling. Don't leave your dogs out on their own anymore.

[ontheroad]

Thanks for the nice comments on my few pictures. I wish I had taken dozens, but perhaps in the Spring I'll drive over to the farm and take more. I lived in a small artist studio attached to the ole barn--literally surrounded by trees. I don't know what tree this is, but most of the trees on the property were maples (see this link:Maple Tree Identification (http://www.massmaple.org/treeID.html - broken link)), and a great many white oak, spruce and pine.

I'll try to post another photo soon.

[ontheroad]

Here's a view of the old farmhouse (the farm is still in moderate use) from my studio. The trees on the right are all apples.



Here's a view from my studio to the man-made pond:



We had a wonderful Great Blue Heron visit this summer and a friendly Moose or three walked by me on a few warm days.

And here's my studio tucked in between all the green foliage, now brown:

[StillwaterTownie]

Trees around a house are sure nicer than no trees at all. But trees sure have an awful downside, such as when they fall on your house from the result of a wind and/or ice storm. I once lived at a house with a nice 60 ft. cottonwood tree in the back yard until one evening a tornado came and totally uprooted it. Luckily, the tree simply feel across the yard and didn't touch anyone's house.

Another time during an awful ice storm half of a bradford pear tree in the front yard broke off and hit some of the house, damaging mostly the gutter. It's really heartbreaking when these other wise fine and beautiful shade trees are unable to hold up to bad weather.

[TnHilltopper]

Originally Posted by Tek_Freek

2. I do not approve of what was done on the lot already built on. It used to be as thickly planted as ours. What was that person thinking?

Originally Posted by Tek_Freek

TnHilltopper:

Beautiful! I went through the rest of the pictures on that site and really like where you live.

Looks like we'll be "near enough" neighbors one day: our lot is in Fairfield Glade, just north of Crossville. We'll be moving there when we retire.

Tek, Your neighbor seems to have that usual gut the landscape, place house, plant tree mentality that so many seem to have. I am glad you are choosing to have a smaller footprint and take the landscape into greater concern. Of course, welcome neighbor! Where I live, anyone within 20 miles or so is considered neighbor.

OnTheRoad, I just love the studio! I see more wildflowers in my future around my humble homestead.

[pnc66]

I'm one of the ones who loves trees. I hate it when I see the developers come in and bulldoze a forest to put in the McMansions with absolutely NO trees whatsoever - and then the HOAs limit what you can plant on top of it! Grrrr.

Since some of you have posted some very nice pictures, I thought I would share some of where I used to live. I still own the land but I no longer live there. Yes, most of the trees are still standing except for the what the electric company cut down in their easement along the street. In case you were wondering, the location is roughly half way between Houston and College Station in Texas. These are of the front yard.

[RoaminRed]

OMG leave the freakin' trees! Well, that's my opinion anyway. I think most developers clear everything out because it makes construction that much easier (think: saves money).

[denverian]

My 2 year old house is at the site of a former airport, and my house is on what used to be a runway. So there obviously were no trees to cut down! That's the only complaint I have about the development, even though they plant lots of trees, about as big as they can get. I have an oak, a maple, two locusts and two that I don't know what they are (start out green in Spring, then turn plumb color for summer and fall, no fruit) and they're all about 15' - 20' tall after over two years in the ground. I've been told they really take off around 5 years.