The reconstruction of the River Road in Windham, and other roads, has spurred some questions and conversation about trees in a road right-of-way. Over the years, people tend to plant trees along the road frontage of their properties to give themselves a buffer from the noisy traffic. This is a great idea, as long as you know where the road right-of-way ends and your property begins. If you plant  a tree in the road right-of-way, you could lose your screen someday. The owners of the road, whoever that may be, actually own the trees within its bounds. Our company has…

Winter is finally over and summer is just around the corner. Warm sunny days induce a need to get outside, to “go up to camp”. What’s the first thing you want to do when you get to camp? Build a camp fire. That’s all well and good as long as the firewood you use was obtained locally. If the wood came from out of state, there could be a problem. Invasive insects may be hitching a ride on the wood or under the bark. Insects, such as the Emerald Ash Borer and the Asian Longhorn Beetle, have already been found…

One sure thing about trees is that they always grow towards the light, the open space. This may work great for the tree but it works against us humans in a lot of ways. Trees along the roadways are no exception, always growing inward, toward the light, which is unfortunately also toward the road. Many times, in this situation, they also take on a natural lean, which is never ideal for any tree. Have you ever pulled up to a stop sign only to have trees and brush blocking your visibility down the street to see if any traffic is…

In this segment, I would like to focus on tree cutting/pruning in the shoreland zone, particularly the area that lies within 100 feet of a lake or stream. In this area, we use the "point system" to help us determine what, if any, cutting is allowed. We start by gridding the shorefront off into 25' X 50' sections (or 25' X 25' in some towns) and then we measure and map the existing trees. The measurement is made at 4  1/2 feet above the ground (Diameter at Breast Height or DBH). Each tree is given a point designation, based on it's size (the larger the…

This time I would like to talk about double-top pine trees. What typically happens is, the top of the tree is broken off, maybe in an ice-storm or high wind, and the top-most branch takes over to be the new tree top. Sometimes multiple limbs try to compete to be the new top. This causes a fork in the tree... a double top. Now, 20 years later, you have two tree tops touching each other, each obstructing the other from growing inward, and so a cavity forms between the two tree tops. The cavity then fills with rain water, which…