Several years ago, I was happy to see a long-neglected home in the neighborhood getting a major renovation. I became increasingly concerned about the trees over the months when the trucks and heavy equipment were moving repeatedly over the lawn - and over the root zone of many mature oak trees on the property. Everything looked great when the project was finished. Over the last few years, I've noticed signs of deterioration in several of those trees. Now there are at least 5 huge oak trees that are completely dead. Oaks support many species of wildlife, so this has an impact on our local ecosystem.
A professional arborist who works regularly in the area and saw the renovation in progress says he noticed the amount of heavy equipment movement over the trees' root zones and wondered how long it would take for the trees to die from soil compaction. Soil compaction can gradually kill trees because it deprives the roots of oxygen. There may have been other factors involved in the death of those trees, but they probably would have lived a lot longer if their root zones had been protected during construction.
Years ago I knew a family who had an older house renovated and a new house built in heavily wooded locations. They worked with their contractor and a professional arborist to develop a plan to protect trees on each site during construction. There were penalties written into the construction contract for damage to trees. Construction fencing was put up around the root zones of trees close to the house and driveway. The contractor did an excellent job at instructing the crew, and there was no significant tree damage. 10+ years after construction those trees still looked healthy and had no dead branches. That was proof enough for me that it's feasible to preserve trees in spite of major construction if a well informed plan is made and the general contractor is on board with it. Those lots were more heavily wooded than all but the densest lots in Beverly and Morgan Park.
Now there's a nearby house with many mature oaks is in the middle of a comparable renovation. The contractors there have taken care to protect the trunks of vulnerable trees, and there's less heavy equipment movement across the lawn, so I'm hoping that the trees will suffer less of an impact from the construction and won't die prematurely.
Even if new oaks are planted now at the first house to replace the ones that died, it will take decades for them to reach the size of the trees that were lost - beyond the lifetimes of the children who live in that house.
4 comments:
Great piece that should be required reading for everyone doing home construction.
Thanks from TK #467!
Hey Fargo, you can't regrow oak trees even from locally evolved acorn. Only because they were already older than 40 years old they can survive when Europeans arrived
You let your Alderman know these are Chicago's redwood trees representing living links connecting back to first nation people.
So tomorrow start working out a plan to come to a complete survey of all the neighbors trees public and private consider them endangered animals and Chicago will write a law protecting from construction
You're welcome TK #467 - from TK #883.
To Scottie - as part of the permit process, Chicago should have requirements for plans to protect large oaks, with provisions for inspections and penalties for failure.
What we've lost on this one house lot represents hundreds of years of growth between all those trees.
Today there are arborists working to remove the dead oak trees. Heartbreaking to see it. I hope that the homeowners will plant replacement trees and take better care of them.
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