Not too long ago we gave a consultation to a gentleman whose backyard was almost entirely surrounded by tall trees: a row of maples leaning over from his neighbor’s yard, a large bushy pine, and a 60-foot sequoia that he had planted 25 years ago. Overhead, the canopies of all these trees formed a nearly-complete dome that shaded out his whole lawn, leaving only a small patch of green near his sunlit deck. Smaller trees and shrubs were suppressed and dying.

In the center of all this, stood a sequoia sapling. Ten feet tall, with nowhere to grow but to someday get its canopy tangled up with the others. He asked whether the tree had a chance. The simple answer? Not much.

“Mn, that’s what I thought,” he said. “Well, that one I can take down on my own.”

“Then I recommend you do it soon, before it turns into that one,” I say, pointing to the beast of a sequoia just twenty feet away.

And I’m sure he will. He’s a hands-on kind of man. But sometimes a tree growing in the wrong place is left to do as it pleases for far too long, and then you get cases like this:

That bit of work is a cedar tree planted on top of an elevated terrace with a retaining wall, sitting just an armspan away from a shed and butt-up against the house. That’s three different valuable structures in immediate danger should the tree ever split in the wind, or simply keep growing until it breaks down walls. This may not be the absolute worst tree placement we’ve ever encountered, but it certainly was… memorable. And in case you were thinking this was a small tree due to the photo angle:

They’re cute when they’re young, but trees will outgrow your ability to contain them before you know it. Fortunately, each of our climbers has over 10 years of experience working with these tricky, hard-to-reach removals. All the more reason to call us for a free estimate for all of your tree care needs!