Thursday, February 23, 2012

Why?

 April, 2011

I loved this courtyard off Clinton Street in Brooklyn Heights.

 June, 2011

 December, 2011


Last Saturday. The apricot tree? Gone.

Why?

Has a favourite tree of yours ever disappeared?

13 comments:

  1. the loss of trees is always very sad. Where I live an embassy had beautiful flowering trees and a few summers ago they destroyed them and put in these boring tall green bushes. It still is a loss of beauty. Trees really give a sense of hope don't they?

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  2. Yes. A grove of six or eight rare Franklinia alatamaha in Seargentsville, NJ, was plowed under for small scale public housing. No one cared. No one noticed.

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    1. Franklinia! Good grief, what idiots. If they had any idea what they retail for they would have tried to save and sell them.

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  3. They've taken the shrub too. Now it doesn't look like a "courtyard" anymore. It looks like a dead end alley. It was an apricot tree? I want an apricot tree.
    Our next door neighbor had a huge apple tree that produced bushels of beautiful bad tasting apples. She buried them every Fall. Last November she had it taken down. She doesn't have many birds left, the squirrels moved and I didn't know her neighbor had such an "artistic" yard.

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  4. Well it looks to me as though whoever lives there (now?) has no intention of ever having anything growing again. They have bricked up the little beds.
    Clearly they didn't like leaves etc in their barren little space - rather like one of my neighbours who made me cut branches off my Keurboom tree because it was dropping little leaves on their driveway and their cats lay in them and then went indoors and dropped them on the floor off their coats and the lady of the house had to vacuum them up - oh dear! The lopped off branches unbalanced the poor tree and it blew over in the next storm. The same neighbours sweep the roof of their new wing because my pepper tree sheds leaves on it - so wierd.

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  5. Note all the right angles and the precise alignment of the furniture, along with the thoroughly swept deck. My guess is the apricot tree was considered a litter source, especially if it bore fruit. Sad.

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  6. It's a little tough to tell, but it looks as though the concrete runs all the way to the wall and the bed was just sitting on top. And maybe a shallow bed at that. Is that accurate? Not much of a root zone for a tree. Any chance it fell over pulling the bulk of the soil and other plants with it and the whole thing was removed as a result? I'd much prefer to think that than the owner just didn't like plants :)

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    Replies
    1. Ah, Paul - the voice of reason. You could be right. There was that heavy, wet October snow.

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  7. It could be that it was creating problems with the roots? They can wreak havoc with underground pipes and/or concrete like sidewalks. I should have added an apricot to our bare root plantings this year. Ah well, next Winter we can put that at the top of the list.

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  8. Yes, an old shop and garden next door to me were bought by developers when the old guy died. The huge and very beautiful birch tre which overhung my garden and provided year round joy and a wonderful dynamic to my plot, was just gone when I came home from work one day. I was horrified and couldn't bear to go into my garden for days and see all the sawdust and twigs and destruction. That night I dreamed I walked past the place where it used to grow and felt an enormous sense of calm and peace. Tree spirit? I don't know, but the feeling has stayed with me...

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  9. Sad to see that tree go. Many years ago we rented a house and enjoyed some figs and pomegranates from our next door neighbor's overhanging branches. Unfortunately they decided to pave their whole backyard and cut down all the fruit trees that were so wonderful, I was so sad.

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