That's a shame. That can get expensive, hope you can get a break on the price. Won't conjecture about the tap root because I don't know why it wouldn't have one unless it was a transplant which I doubt given the setting.

On another thread I was reading about poplars, presumably a different variety, and they aren't very long-lived. The dead pine might be a clue or unrelated.

Tap roots are seldom present after the seedling stage. They get "choked" off when the secondary (side) roots develop.

Poplar trees are not good trees to grow. I had some for just a short time and army worms infested them and I had to cut them all down. I had to cut down my white birch trees that same year because of the infestation. They must get to the roots and kill the trees.

Interesting, jean- maybe that explains why so many huge oaks that fall have few roots. It makes you wonder what held them upright for so many years in the first place. The tree company is here cleaning up. What a mess! Doris, I had been letting some poplars grow but I am going to cut them down. We have mostly sweet gum, along with pines, and I don't like the sweet gum because of the balls that drop by the hundreds. Aliska, taking trees down is expensive. We added two more for them to remove while their climbers were here yesterday.

Expensive, I feared for you. I have a huge one and one of the best known tree companies that used by people around here (see their trucks and shredders all the time) quoted me $10,000 to remove and grind the stump. I decided to leave it be for awhile longer. The lowest quote I got was $5,000, and I don't know how good that outfit would be, I did insist on bonded and insured.

In a case such as yours, since it doesn't appear anyone's property is in peril, I usually try to find somebody who will drop it, cut it up, clean up and haul it off.

I'm worried about insurance problems and the neighbor's whopping new and expensive garage, but this is not the proper forum for that. It's just a terrible worry, and I don't want to take that tree down, my friend and consolation through the years, it's old and huge. I finally paid $40 to get an opinion from a professional arborist, but don't know if that would hold up in court or not, and I hope it doesn't come to that.

I keep getting conflicting answers regarding my homeowner's ins about it concerning who would be liable.

{{!gwi}}

aliska, we had two very large, tall pines (both almost 36" in diameter), one very tall but not so big around pine, the very large, tall poplar removed, plus they hauled off two cut up pines that another tree company had cut down but didn't remove, for about $3900 dollars. We didn't have the stumps ground since they don't pose a problem for anyone. The pine in this last picture was practically on the line between us and our neighbor. He has worried for several years that it would fall over onto his shed and into his swimming pool- I worried about that, too, and that it could fall onto our shed which is near his. He should be happy now. I am. We like our tree company.

$3900 is a lot lot lot of money, but I know that's what it takes to get the job done right by professionals, some would have probably charged you more.

I decided to spare you my "stories" lol. If you're going to have a lot of trees (I'd have more if I lived out and didn't have to worry about the city and neighbors), you are going to have problems with the large ones eventually.

I will say that after 30 years, my dwarf cherry trees died, how I miss them, but we, should say son used a hand saw 'cuz my chain saw was at the hardware store for sharpening), chopped them down ourselves, my daughter did the other one with the chain saw the year before. I did help haul all the brush to the "pile". Finally got rid of that and now another "pile" is accumulating. If I tie it the city will take it free. I'll put that on my list before the pile gets too large to tie in bundles.

We can burn on burn days again, which is a good thing. Just no leaves. That will help with a lot of it.

What a mess! I had no idea it is so expensive to get trees removed. Thankfully, DH and the neighbor do ours. And luckily, none are too close to the house, so if they screw up, we still hav a home.
JoanMN

Joan, my sister lives out a ways to the west of Minneapolis and one year they had a terrible storm that downed a lot of trees. They had a middle-aged couple for neighbors with a lot of them that went down, about 30, they must have had a large property.

I felt sorry for that couple as they were trying to do it themselves, you can imagine what hiring it all done would cost, and it was really hard on them, wife was helping and it had turned really hot which is not too often in that part of central MN but occasionally for a few weeks in the summer.

My sister's lot on a lake is fairly small so she can't have a lot of trees and plants a lot of flowers and shrubs instead which is probably a good thing.