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Work begins taking down
these 35-40 ft.cypress trees.
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We were recently asked to replace several cypress trees in one of
their gardens. The trees had grown too large for their location and needed to
be removed. 4 foot tall replacement trees had been nurtured on-site, grown from
cuttings of the mature cypresses to be removed.
The smaller trees will look more proportionate to the rest of the garden
and not obscure the view of the Palisades.
This job was different from most of our tree removal because we were
asked to take down the trees in as large sections as possible. Unlike in forestry, where trees are often cut
for lumber, in urban forestry we typically take down trees in 2-4 ft. sections:
we don’t often have the room to drop an entire tree; also the smaller, cut sections
are easier to manage through tight spaces and into the chipper. However, since
cypress is an unusually valuable tree, the trunks would be taken to the woodworking
shop facilities at Wave Hill where they will eventually be used in one of their
upcoming projects.
I’d like to digress for a moment on the history of cypress trees. Cypresses
have been admired and ultilized for thousands of years. They are an old-world
Mediterranean tree, whose tall, narrow beauty was used to grace important
public and religious sites. The wood was also valued for its lightness,
strength and lack of sap. Ancient Egyptians used cypress to make coffins for
their mummies; Plato inscribed his code of laws on cypress because he thought
it would last longer than brass.
Today, cypress remains a valued wood for its resistance to rot, lack
of warping and the beauty of its grain and hue. America has many native
cypresses. The ones at Wave Hill are
Lawson Falsecypress (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana). Though called a “false” cypress, the
genus is generally considered part of the cypress family.
Here are some photos from the job:
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We began by limbing up
the tree by removing small branching
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Then we rigged the bare
trunks by anchoring
them with a line to another tree.
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We felled the last trunk
by steadying it with
ropes from the ground,
allowing a slow, controlled
progression to the ground.
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Wave Hill wound up with
some beautiful cypress logs, up to 20 ft. in length.
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