One of the reasons I love the lot that my house stands on is the fact that the previous owners left most of the trees. This has led to some interesting problems, since it is apparent that the previous owners also did not take care of their trees so well. One such problem was a dead black locust tree in the very back of the lot.
The tree was leaning precariously, apparently being held up by a large hickory tree. In the path of its fall was my storage shed, which was a cause of much concern. The neighbors, ever conscious of an opportunity to point out misfortune, continued to gleefully tell me how they heard the tree creaking, how they were sure they saw roots pulling up out of the ground, how confident they were that all this was the fault of the previous owner.
I'd called the arborist on Thursday to come take a look at it. He gave me what I considered to be an absurdly low estimate of the cost, and told me he'd try to work me in sometime in the next week. Much to my amazement, he called the next morning at 8 AM to tell me he'd be there in 30 minutes to start cutting. He managed to get the tree down without crushing either my fence or the outbuilding that the dead tree was threatening. He admitted after the fact that Friday was probably a little more exciting than he'd been expecting. He did an incredible job, leaving me with a nice pile of firewood-length locust segments.
In any case, if you're in the Asheville area and are looking for an excellent arborist, I can give you a recommendation. He gave every tree on my lot a cursory inspection, pointing out things that I might want to do or would need to do in the future and was quite pleasant and efficient.
Posted by brent at 13:16