Timber: Salisbury homeowner commissions century-old Willow Oak removal
Published 12:00 am Sunday, January 12, 2025
A crew with Frady Tree Care begins the process of cutting down a 100+ year Willow Oak in Salisbury. - Chandler Inions
A summertime shot of the tree at 210 Carolina Boulevard. - Submitted
By Chandler Inions
chandler.inions@salisburypost.com
SALISBURY — One of the largest Willow Oaks in Salisbury had to be cut down last week.
The tree, located in the 200 block of Carolina Boulevard, was more than 18 feet around and over 100 feet high. It had been around for more than a century.
The homeowner, Hansel Bumgarner, hated to see it go, but as the tree was reaching the end of its life span, it was becoming a liability for people and property nearby.
“Limbs were falling down,” Bumgarner said. “It has reached the end of its life span.”
For a long time, it was not even the only large willow oak at the house.
“I used to have two of them over the property,” Bumgarner said. “I had one on the other side of the house.”
Bumgarner said they took that one down right before Hurricane Florence in 2018.
“When they took it down, it had a big dead split down the middle,” Bumgarner said. “Hurricane Michael might have sent it crashing down.”
Bumgarner has lived at the Carolina Boulevard home since 1998. He said when they moved in a neighbor told them that they had memories of being a young child at the home in the 1940s, and remembered the tree being a source of shade and relaxation.
“They had picnics underneath them,” Bumgarner said. “There is a concrete picnic table underneath the tree on the other side of the house … and basically, during the summer time, the two trees gave total shade to the yard.”
Bumgarner said that he and his wife like to sit out there in the evenings and that on the weekends, it was a popular place for people to gather during the heat of the day to swap stories.
To cut down the tree, Bumgarner enlisted Frady Tree Care of Salisbury. Bumgarner liked and trusted Frady to do the job properly having had them out before when it was just a matter of trimming the tree back. However, the tree was beyond the point that simply trimming it would have been effective.
There had been a few instances in which the couple observed indicators that the tree was dying including discoloration of the wood and its reduced acorn production.
“My wife and I made the decision that it just had to come down,” Bumgarner said.
