Can you stand one more tree post? It’s the last in the series.
When you drive up to this house, the live oak is what you notice. It basically is the front yard. It shades all but a small fraction of the lawn, and to reach over there it would have to reach across the driveway. But it could. This tree can do anything.
Its north side was pounded in the hailstorm of 2013. It came back. Drought before that. No problem. Too much rain this year. Never faltered. It’s basically invincible.
Each spring when the live oak’s new growth pushes out the old, leaving yellow oak pollen everywhere, the tree looks a little sad. But it hangs in there, and by the time summer arrives, it has dusted itself off and is back in business.
A couple of months ago some guys were in the neighborhood, trimming trees, and they offered to trim this one. I said no. One, they weren’t local, and I only hire local folks. But two, what if their equipment had touched a tree with oak wilt? No way will I knowingly expose my live oak to disease. There’s so little I can control—I can at least offer this gesture of protection. To a tree that has taken more than I thought a tree could.
