Can chopping trees down be a good thing?

[Daisy]

I love trees. Even as a very small child I wanted to have a tree in our garden - the nearest I got was a privet hedge! Then in the second house OH and I lived in we had a row of beautiful mature oak trees. We bought the house in winter and when spring came it was obvious one of them was completely dead and we had to fell it. Even so I felt sad and a bit guilty somehow!

So you can imagine, I love living in a forest, and still hate to see trees cut down. But things move on, and I thought this news clip was very interesting - similar things are being done here to maintain and restore bogs and to replant some areas with native trees.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-56450965

[Plantaholic]

I love trees too Daisy, our house is called Trees. We don't have many trees in the garden now but we do back onto a wood which is owned by the Parish.

[Oma]

Sorry I love trees just not near the house ,
We have mini forests around every estate , literally thousands and thousands of them ,
Then we have huge 50 ft ones behind our back fence , they block out light and a nightmare when the leaves fall

I hate them being there , across the road is fine just not near the house ,
Every year we have to ring the forestry to come trim the branches back as they hang over the garden .
If I had the money I would buy a house on a plot of land with no trees in sight unless it was a Monkey tree now them I do like
Evergreens are fine within a certain height , but nothing that drops its leaves ,.

[Sunshine]

I’m with you Oma. I love trees, from a distance. I am lucky to live very near a lovely woods, where I visit very frequently. I have a silver birch in the garden, that was there when I bought the bungalow. I have several evergreens, which I love. I spend more time clearing up leaves from neighbours trees, than working on my own garden. They look nice (until autumn).

[Gemini]

Our road was an orchard once. The builders, when making this road in the 1960's ensured every garden had a tree. Not all do now. I happy to say we have a tree in the front garden and one in the back. I agree with Oma about the leaves though!

When DD3 and I went for our walk in the small nature reserve wood last week we saw several trees which had been cut down. A notice explained that they were unsafe, and were being left there to provide a home for insects and small animals.

[Daisy]

I agree with all the feelings about trees being in the wrong place and have the same problem with some of our neighbours' trees. Although I don't mind the leaves in the autumn. I just leave them on the borders and they quietly rot down, and I don't do 'tidy' in the garden so I don't mind seeing them there.

Gem - interesting what you say about trees that have had to be cut down. In the big storm in October 1987 hundreds of trees were blown down in the New Forest and they were eventually taken out. The next huge storm in January 1990 saw yet more damage, but those trees were left where they fell (unless they were blocking a road or main pathway) and many of them regrew. The others are still providing habitats for plants, insects and all sorts of wildlife. It seems nature knows best!

[Nanto2girls]

I'm not a fan of trees. We have a silver birch just inside our garden and i hate it.
For over 50 years i have been trying to get hubby to agree to get rid of it,to no avail.
Every year he cuts some branches off because they overhang in the road.

[WeeGranny]

Where our house is used to be an orchard and there was one apple tree left in the garden That had so much fruit one year that it collapsed! We have planted 3 apple trees, a plum and a cherry and they are all good fruit producers. Our neighbour used to have Leylandi along our border, but they took them down and put a high fence and a garage in their place. We have prunus trees on the other side of the fence at the bottom of the garden and some down the other side. I used to have a hazel tree in the middle of the garden, but that really got too big and I had it cut down.

I don't like being in a forest and although I do like trees I don't like them too near. SiL thought it was hilarious when we were house hunting and I was checking if trees were close to the house!