Homeless Trees. Frustrating.

13 years ago

About 5 or 6 years ago, I lost all of my large, mature ash trees to Emerald Ash Borer, 5 of them. A younger tree was able to fight it off until Imadcloprid hit the market, and it's thriving and ok with its annual treatment (well, until the EAB's evolve resistance, anyway).

So, I replaced the ashes with a nice assortment -- a sweet gum, golden Metasequoia, American beech, columnar Norway maple (yes, I know, junk tree in some ways, but pretty and I needed something kind of narrow for the one space), and finally a sourwood. The sourwood didn't do so well after a couple of years, so I moved it to a different area of the yard with clay soil and more moisture, and it's happy there.

The rest of them grew pretty well. Until January 2009, when the Township came around and announced they were coming through with 8 foot wide "safety paths" right through my yard.

Because the County had previously shifted the main road towards my side by almost 20 feet, there was virtually no public right of way anymore (a little strip less than 2 feet wide at the narrowest. The Township essentially forced us to sell them an easement (and frankly didn't pay what I felt they should have for it, either). Right where these trees and other landscaping was planted. If we didn't sell voluntarily, they would have taken us to court and got it through eminent domain.

Last year in the end of March, I spent a week of my evenings digging everything up and potting it all. I intended to replant it after the Township was done with its carnage.

Well, they put in the "safety path" over Memorial Day week and the next week. It's an 8 foot "highway to nowhere" IMO -- a waste of public money that wasn't really necessary, but OK, fine, it's done.

Alas, when I look at this thing in real life, there's just no good way to replant my trees back out there. It looks so much more imposing than it did on paper. And, they have the perpetual option to come back and redo this thing as needed so can destroy anything planted within 10 feet of it per the contract they made us sign.

So, now I have a bunch of homeless, potted trees. Which are actually really pretty where I have them around my patio and driveway, in nice decorative pots with annuals around the base. They range from about 8 to 12 feet tall now. All are lush, full, and healthy and put on a lot of new growth this year.

Where in the blazes am I going to plant these things? Last winter they were heeled in. They need "forever" sites by this fall. My yard is full already.

Just venting. Thank you.

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Comments (7)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
13 years ago
there might be some room in adrian mi .... lol ...

ken

ps: of course i have no way to get them here ....
musicalperson
13 years ago
I'm sorry to hear about your circumstances.

A couple of ideas come to mind. Post them on Craiglist or Freecycle or other give-it-away internet communities.

If you'd like to let us have a look at what was done you may get some ideas on where to plant what you have if you post a photo(s) of the location. It's hard to imagine that they took so much space that there is none left for those relatively small trees.
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katrina1
13 years ago
Wow, hope you had a very large back yard, considering that first 20 feet of road easement was lost and then probably almost another 20 feet for the base around the 8 foot "highway to nowhere." All with maybe even 6 or so more feet of area the city holds the right to disrupt for street upkeep work.

Did you end up losing up to just under 50 feet of distance between your private backyard property compared to where the city easments and main roadway used to run?

What a shock it must have been for you after all that work was completed. Does it make you now desire for a large privacy wall with maybe a nearly just as screening and sound deafening gate to be built between all that public area and your private area?

Seems to me that you not only lost your trees, but also your privacy and qualtiy of life that you orginally bargened for when purchasing your house. That is unless your back yard property is more massive than what your above description led me first to believe.

If I have misunderstood, maybe your pictures posted here would help me to avoid such wrong perceptions.
denninmi
Original Author
13 years ago
Oh, C'mon, Ken, Adrian is like 50 or 60 miles from me, I'm in central Oakland Co. Don't you have a wheelbarrow or something? Gheesh, get walkin', man! :-)

Well, they're little trees now, but they'll grow up. This stupid path is about 15 feet out from the side of my house at its closest. There is actually almost as much room on the other side of it between the path and road at some spots since the whole thing twists and curves like a snake. I'm just disgruntled with the entire thing from start to finish. They had so many complex rules about just how this dumb sidewalk could go in, and they pushed it in way too close to work around utility poles, gas lines, etc.

I'll figure out somewhere to plant them -- they're all things I want as part of my "collection" (well, I guess the dumb Norway maple I could live without).

Maybe I'll have a surprise summer storm that will open up some planting spots -- the black cherry out back is kind of past its prime. Happened in '08 when we had 80 mph winds.

As I said, I'm just venting, but thanks for the replies.
denninmi
Original Author
13 years ago
Katrina1 -- basically what you said is all correct. The road improvement work was done over 20 years ago, so I'm "used to" that by now. But in essence, yes, people are now as much as 40 feet closer to my bedroom windows than they were in the 1980's. I can see heads walking by mere feet from my windows now. The public pathway is not straight, but very undulating, so its distance from my house varies over its course. In essence, though, what they did was put it diagonally through the front corner of my yard closest to my house, so that it would line up with a sidewalk on the other side of the street built previously by a private developer.

And yes, I do have 2.2 acres total, almost all "back yard" When the house was built in the late 1940s zoning mandated it be close to the road. Later that was changed and the newer homes on the street are set back much further. Oh well, can't change that now.

A big privacy fence would be great but not in the budget. It will be more budget friendly privacy plantings, including a lot of thorny things to keep people out of the yard and more upright vegetation to block the view at critical points. I'm planning on planting some taller ornamental grasses and also some vines on trellises. I'm seriously toying with planting some of my blackberries out there, although the rest of the fam is against that.

Some of that will be my 4th of July weekend project maybe, if I get to it. The rest of it might have to wait until fall when I won't have to water it so much.

But thanks for your reply.
krycek1984
13 years ago
I just hate when the government acts like they can use and take private land as they see fit. They're almost as bad as a corporation sometimes!

Our ancient house out in the far suburbs has the same issue...huge backyard but due to old zoning it had to be close to the road. I feel your pain.

I also understand how expensive a privacy fence can be, especially if you have to use professional services.

I would totally plant those blackberries there to keep the public out! Maybe some amur maple hedges too and just some generally imposing and thick bushes!
whaas_5a
13 years ago
Why do you have homeless trees on a 2.2 acre lot? I have a 1/3 acre and those trees in a pot would be in the ground within an hour on my property, lol.

Homeless Trees. Frustrating.

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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5

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Homeless Trees. Frustrating.

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