My street is lined with sweet gum trees that have leaves that turn red in autumn. The neighborhood was built between 1947 and 1952, and so I guess the trees are the same age. The trees make nasty spiky balls, and so they are not one of my favorite trees, but people who visit like them. When I lived on Abbot Kinney in Venice, my street was lined with aging fan palms, which I did like, but they were slowly dying, one by one. They made great silhouettes at sunset, however. I moved from Venice to Westchester (both neighborhoods of Los Angeles) in 2009 because I could afford a house twice the size of what I could in Venice, but I probably would have stayed in Venice if I could have afforded it, although the traffic was getting very annoying. It wasn't bad when I first moved there 20 years ago.

Wow, Greenthumbz. That, in my opinion, would be a very large tree to see in the I-95 corridor. I'm not even sure Longwood has any with that trunk girth. Maybe a couple. They could be more common up towards the mountains where there was less logging or clearing of land for agriculture. New England isn't the only part of the country where land has reverted to forest. Apparently the entire Elk Neck Peninsula of the upper Bay was agricultural until the end of the 19th century. Now it is almost completely forested. Thus, there aren't many old trees.

I found this looking for the general size of big trees in the Northeast. I don't think they get much bigger than yours. Has a good picture of the Barnes Monkey Puzzle, too.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.pabigtrees.com/News.aspx

Yes, there are plenty of old trees, maybe a few that were once in full sun and are wide trunked, then many that are in a wooded area and taller than wide. Mostly oaks, Beech, maple and others. I have no pictures currently. There are a couple Pa champs sorta near me, one in a town (Perryopolis) near me, and another in Roundhill park, possibly Rostraver is the town, not sure. There are many champs in eastern Pa, I am in western Pa. There are some large oaks up in the mountains near me, I can't think of the name of the place now. I had gone up there many times this past summer. I'll think of it later I'm sure. My neighborhood is surrounded by woods, but, not too far from the main highways going each direction.

Not really. Where I live now is pretty urban. My hometown, where my parents live, was farmland in my grandparent's time.

The tree in the link is from a mansion near me...doesn't look old, but these gardens were alleged to have been planted by a former President a couple centuries ago,

Here is a link that might be useful: Mansion

greenthhumbz; that is huge!

There are some old oaks spread out but only close to where people live. The woods are all young due to intense timber cutting. Even small, stunted trees upon cliffs and in bogs was harvested until about a 100 years ago, so not many trees are older than that. Even when I cut down huge spruce trees in my own back yard, the growth rings tell they sprouted only in the ww2 era.

Many neighborhoods growing up had lots of old, large trees. Almost all of those trees were cut down & either never replaced (even after 40 yrs) or replaced w/a few dinky junk trees -- you know the types.

Fortunately, forests well outside suburban areas are healthy & have big trees. Yes, there is some clearcutting in those areas, but it seems to be well thought-out and the typical oak/hickory/ash/tuliptree forests in the east US regrow from stump-cuts quite quickly. The coniferous forests of the west US don't resprout & have to re-seed naturally or artificially.

greenthumbzdude, fairly large oak? That's a monster, tho where I grew up there was, and still is, a 350-400 yr old white oak much larger than that -- about 10' in dia.

What species is that? N red oak?

Just to give an idea, here's a white oak trunk just down the road in the forest. Surprising, since I assume it's the same age as the forest that was assumedly clear-cut around 60-70 yrs ago. Hard to believe it could develop this trunk in that time, tho it's in very good soil & moisture down low:

Most of the surrounding area is former farmland, turned into suburb. Most of the trees are about the same age as the houses, approx 50 years old.

In my neighborhood, there isn't "old" growth, but are a few old farm houses, and some conservation land, where there are older trees. Wandering through the woods, I found an old American Chestnut stump that was still sprouting. A few of the White Pines are probably 100+ years old.

This Silver maple located at an old farm down the street, is about 100 years old (thought it was older but talked to the farmer one day and he remembers the approx. size when he was a boy - he's now around 80 years old).

That's me, for scale, I'm 5'8" -
{{gwi:335246}}

This post was edited by terrene on Fri, Nov 21, 14 at 14:09

terrene, you've shown that before but still stunning -- like a giant, writhing muscle. Perhaps at that advanced development a low-down branch crown can become so interlocked & reinforced that, even for a silver maple, can resist splitting.

Hi Beng, yes I posted that one on a Silver maple thread a couple years back - it is an amazing tree, very nicely shaped for a Silver maple. I have wondered why one of those huge trunks hasn't split off - especially when we have an early freak snowstorm like in October a few years back, which clobbered my Silver maple and one of the neighbor's. No doubt this tree have survived more than on of these types of events intact.

Perhaps it's genetics, harder wood, better formed crotches and branching, etc. for this particular specimen of Acer saccharinum.

Here's the wide shot -
{{gwi:335245}}

Stands out here are defined as old growth or mature when the 200 year mark is reached. Successive waves of cutting have removed most of the old growth, quite a bit of it comparatively recently. You can still see spots and patches of it here and there, but the total percentage left is now tiny.

Although there are certainly exceptions there seems to be somewhat of a tendency for individual large, planted decorative trees here to not date back farther than around 1920 or so. Even though the longtime occupancy and bottom-land soils of farmlands here have produced numbers of landmark trees around farmhouses - as back East - by far the majority of examples recorded by Robert Van Pelt in Champion Trees of Washington State (University of Washington Press) that are found in any particular type of land use area are city trees.

I kid you not, that Acer saccharinum is almost identical to one that used to reside in my back yard, albeit mine didn't crotch out quite that low. Sure, we loved the tree, but after living with it for thirty years-it had of course been there long before that-I just got the willys thinking about what it could do to somebody in the right storm event. Not concerned about property damage-that's what insurance is for-but I just couldn't have lived with myself-the big tree guy-knowing it had hurt or killed someone, perhaps a family member. Interestingly enough, ours was right around 100 years of age as well, based on neighborhood age, etc. They sure do get big.

"Old growth"" has different meanings in different parts of the country, and to different people, but generally, there still are a lot of big old silver maples, plus a few other species, on the streets of cities throughout this area. One thing I have noticed is that recent decades have been hard on them, whether storm-related or other factor....they're disappearing quite rapidly. Used to bother me a lot, but now I just accept that they've done their thing and at least in this city, there is a good replacement program. I have decried the emptying out of the older parts of town though, much of the new planting going on in new subdivisions. We've made some moves to remedy that, with varying degrees of success in my opinion. I don't like the mini-trees under wires concept. I'd rather we valleyed them out as they approached the wires, using proper technique, etc, than to forever look at a Jap tree lilac where monsters once stood! Oh well, that's why I own my own land!

+oM

Well, specimens like terrene shows are why I had to have at least one silver maple -- planted on the floodplain where it'll hurt nothing. Grows a bit slower (but reliably) than other silvers 'cause of little oxygen in the soil.

Looking at what a mere 100 yrs can grow, I'm beginning to think the white oak I show above is indeed only 70 yrs old.

I think the oak I posted a pic of is either a red or black oak I am going to have to go back in the spring to get a leaf so I can ID it.....the tree was mentioned in an old newspaper article...thats how i found it....I estimate that its about 7 feet in diameter 4 feet up with a 12 foot base....its not very tall though most of the top got blown off by a storm.

How would you like a monster American Elm in your neighborhood?

another pic

There are huge Bald cypress trees in central Texas not far from us. I could not believe it when I saw them. Apparently, they get quiet a bit of spring water that helped them reach those size that you don't see elsewhere around there.

Here is a link that might be useful: Krause Springs

Too bad these maples and elms all had huge branch removals involving flush cuts.

This post was edited by bboy on Fri, Nov 21, 14 at 2:48

Anybody in the upper midwest wanna see some really large and tall trees-I offer you Cathedral of the Pines, just north of Lakewood WI off of Hwy. 32. Nothing to do with "amenity" trees-gawd how I hate that term-as these are a few of the original forest giants, but the subject being big trees, these are preeminently qualified. Site is also a heron rookery, so that can be an added attraction in nesting season.

+oM

Cool pics - Greenthumb that Elm is amazing! Gorgeous!

Wtom, isn't it nice that at least a few of old-growth trees have not been logged. Wikepedia defined old growth in Mass. as not logged for at least 150 years and in Mass the only old growth is in the western part of the state, although there are indiidual specimens that are much older than that.

Anybody else notice that when people stand next to a tree trunk for scale, they tend to put their hand on the tree? All 3 of the people in photos are just naturally touching the tree, myself included. My theory is tree-lovers have a natural physical connection to trees!

OP wrote In my area there are alot of nice size older trees
tlbean is right, Arkansas has the following:
White River Refuge
Ouachita National Forest
Ozark-St Francis Nat'l Forest
Hot Springs Nat'l Park
Overflow Nat'l Wildlife Refuge
Each one of these contains large acerage of old growth/virgin forests.
tlbean, tell us something about them, share some experiences of old growth forests in your state.

Hello, Sam

I know we have forest here with old growth trees but i have yet to visit one.
I do plan on it in the future. Before this spring i never care for or even noticed trees or nature in general. Now i am seeing everything and i find it to be very interesting.
As for my neighborhood we have many large trees, not as big as the ones shown here.
I have a nice sized oak in my back yard that is the biggest one of its kind ii have seen around here. But it will probably be getting trimmed soon as the branches overhang my roof.

I have a nice sized Pseudotsuga menziesii down by the woodshed. I think it was too small to log when they first came through here with saws.

{{gwi:483011}}

There was old-growth hemlocks not far from VA Tech, one area at Mountain Lake just under 4000' elev and another near that in the Jefferson Nat forest. The age of the hemlocks was said to be 400-500 yrs. Unfortunately, very few were left intact after hurricane Hugo went right thru those areas -- most were broken off about halfway or worse. Before the hurricane, the largest were perhaps 130-140' tall.

We will never have any large beautiful trees where I live because idiots are chopping them down as soon as they get to be any decent size. I guess one day when there's no more air, it will dawn on people how important trees were but then it will be too late and we'll all be dead...sheesh!

I also think of old growth as those trees who were here when the North West expansion began. I consulted an arboretum concerning a guess at the age of a locust tree within fifteen feet of my house with a trunk circumference of 18-1/2 feet. I have a picture of it I ran across a couple nights ago and will post it soon. I also have one enormous spruce tree also planted close enough to the old house that I regularly monitor its health. Never measured the bole on that one, but it towers over the two story house. That sucker ever comes down, it'll take the house with it. I know some of the conifers in the front of the house were here during the civil war, because I have seen pictures of one of them with a man in uniform standing in front of it. Three of the ancient conifers have come down in the last thirty years one austrian pine from diplodia blight, a spruce from heart rot from a decades old lightening strike, and a very fastigiate juniper I know was at least a century old from photographs probably just from the ravages of time. There are the dottings of bird cherry and locust one expects growing on old farmland we left standing and the trees we have planted as windbreaks and in the last thirty years are all sizing up to large trees now, remarkably quicker than I expected.

The way to tell how old previously undocumented trees are is to take core samples, count the growth rings. Trees can be old and small or young and big, depending on site conditions and other circumstances.

I don't take this threads use of the term to be any official usage-that would be reserved for forested areas, not amenity trees planted in yards and terraces. Of course, if someone wants to call such trees old-growth, neither I nor anyone else can stop them from doing so. But actual "old growth" is an actual term with an actual meaning in forestry. We're not dealing with that here. And if we are, we're in the wrong forum.

+oM

Here is a black walnut close to my house...164 inches in circumference....this was a few years ago....this is the largest recorded black walnut in my county

I took these in early fall up the mountains from me, so not in my neighborhood, but not too far away {{gwi:483012}} {{gwi:483013}} {{gwi:337997}} {{gwi:337996}} The first one is a Q. Alba and the second is a Q. Rubra, both up the mountains from me. And then there are 2 American Beech trees about 5 miles from me, and each tree is about a mile from each other. The jug in the 2 top pics is a gallon jug. {{gwi:327591}} Shingle oak about 5 miles from my house. There are some closer to me, actually in my neighborhood, but, I have yet to get someone to pose next to them for scale. I may just bring a baseball cap along for scale. There is a Q. Alba that isn';t super large, but, is kinda old and a bit large, it is hollow now so I best get a picture taken. There was a car which crashed into it about 8-10 years ago. It just may not be there for too much longer. I went on the Pa big trees site last night, and there are not very many oaks in my county, which is Fayette county Pa. I think there are only 2-3 listed. And I was shocked there were no Sycamores listed as champs here. Poaky1

Presumably we are all aware of this.

If not...

Here is a link that might be useful: Big Trees : American Forests

I do ring counts on any of the trees we fell..sure not going to take a plug on those left standing, but that's a valid point, about estimating age on tree size. It might get you to a ballpark, but a pretty vague one. The lightening-struck spruce had over a hundred rings on it, so it was one of the youngsters. We had to take a very majestic ash down two years ago from the ash beetle plague, and it was only thirty five years old, according to the ring count, and the heart wood was beautiful. Just pristine. Makes me sick to even think about it.

Black/English walnut hybrid near Ft Loudon, PA:

I have lots of sugar maples, 1 red oak,2,pin oaks,and a HUGE crepe myrtle tree

Crape myrtles grow much larger than that. Why do you "have" to top it?

Embothrium, look its uneven and I am a perfectionist

Nothing perfect about a topped tree, quite the opposite.

http://www.plantamnesty.org/assets/docs/Cyberlibrary/Trees/5reasonstostoptopping-brochure.pdf

Embothurium Said: nothing perfect about a topped tree, quite the opposite

this makes sense I just cant stand it being uneven I could always do some corrective/shape pruning