Yesterday I wandered my grandmother's neighborhood – suburban, but full of big beautiful mature trees. On a fifteen minute walk, I saw a fox and identified the calls of 24 species of birds.
Today, someone I know cut down two beautiful mature native sweetgums on their property because they didn't want to deal with the "spiky balls".
by NotQuiteInara
10 Comments
That’s depressing. Those trees were so lovely.
Ugh it looks so ugly now, stark & lifeless.
Holy shit that’s terrible
I love natives and have a sweet gum tree in my yard. I totally get the spiky ball hatred. If that thing were non native I would burn it down
It sucks, but I can also think of many trees I’d prefer to sweetgum. I’m not surprised having two in such a small yard drove the owners to such drastic measures.
Hopefully they plant replacements rather than just a barren lawn.
I cut three old maples (Norway) out of my yard two years ago. I was so disappointed with myself because it was like a bad haircut that would take 30 years to regrow.
But I planted some native fruit trees and I’m starting to feel a little better. The immediate change was the worst. One can hope OPs G’Mas neighbor replaces it with something worthwhile.
The better way to have dealt with the “spikey balls” would have been to purge and replace the non-native turf grass.
But no, the lawnmowers somehow have to win over the trees and the flowers… 🤮
Whoever cut the trees down is probably going to hate the increased AC bill this summer.
My mother in law’s neighbor did this too, I’m not sure what all the trees were but one was a native redbud so not really a problem tree. They just didn’t want to have any trees at all. So now she’s more than happy to let her leaves wander on over to their yard
So many humans suck.