Bye Bye Sweetgums, Hello Hot Summer

I found the following two statements on the International Society of Arboriculture web site.

"We like trees around us because they make life more pleasant. Most of us respond to the presence of trees beyond simply observing their beauty. We feel serene, peaceful, restful, and tranquil in a grove of trees."

"Almost everyone knows that trees and other living plants are valuable. They beautify our surroundings, purify our air, act as sound barriers, manufacture precious oxygen, and help us save energy through their cooling shade in summer and their wind reduction in winter."

Yesterday and today the new owner of the house next door which they are renovating has been cutting down three large Sweetgum trees in their backyard. We live in an old neighborhood and part of the charm is the majestic trees throughout. These trees were at least 150 feet tall and have been gracing our backyard with shade since we moved to our home in 1987. They were probably sixty to seventy years old. But now they are gone. We did plant trees in our backyard mainly around the back porch area since we already had the canopy from our neighbor’s trees so we didn't plant elsewhere in the backyard. Our city doesn't have a tree ordinance protecting trees on privately own land and it barely has a tree ordinance that protects trees on public property. I guess people have the right to do whatever they want to do on their own property but it is still ashame that these trees were cut down. I work for a non profit tree group and I hear about trees being cut down all the time. Businesses/land developers can just cut them down and pay mitigation or plant much smaller trees.

So here's the scenario for my backyard this summer. July and August average high's will be 98 to 100 degrees of course without shade it will be damn hot or quoting my son "it will be as hot as a Miami buttcrack".

I wish I had taken before photos; when looking at the one photo below imagine a very nicely spread of tree canopy covering my neighbor's backyard and ours. Two of the large trees were very near the concrete wall/fence. You can see the guy up in the tree cutting down one of the trees in one of the other photos and the last photo is the smaller trees we planted about 10 years ago to shade our back porch.


Neighbor's home


Man in tree


Our home


r.m.