Losing Our Neighbourhood Weeping Birches

Longtime readers will recall my yearly habit of snapping a photo of Olivia walking up Prince Street on the first and last days of school.

Here’s the first day of grade one:

Olivia walking up Prince Street on the first day of grade one

And here’s the last day of grade six:

Olivia walking up Prince Street on the last day of grade six

In every one of those photos, just off to the left you can see the weeping birch tree in front of our neighbours’ house, tree number 482 in the city’s tree inventory.

That tree came down today, along with three of its mates up Prince Street toward Grafton, a deliberate cutting due disease.

Here’s this morning just after 8:30 a.m. from our front vestibule:

Birch Tree before cutting down

And here’s the same view an hour later:

Birch tree after cutting down.

It was a beautiful tree we lost today, a part of our neighbourhood for as long as we’ve lived here and many years before. Here are a few photos I took earlier this fall when the announcement came that the end was near:

The weeping birch in its glory

Closeup of the birch bark.

Comments

Sus's picture
Sus on November 26, 2021 - 05:20 Permalink

I’m so sorry! It’s always distressing to lose the trees around us. Our neighbours cut a bunch of Doug Fir trees this summer that were poorly sited and destabilizing a retaining wall. And even though they were only about 15 years old and needed to go, it was a painful shock! I hope you can watch some new trees grow there.

Sunshine Haven's picture
Sunshine Haven on November 26, 2021 - 21:50 Permalink

My neighbor and I paid to take down a giant oak tree that straddled our front yards late this summer. It died. It died and I had to have it cut down. It was probably 80 years old. Planted when the neighborhood went in. It was always full of birds and squirrels, fighting and playing and procreating. I grieved that tree and felt like I had failed. I failed the birds, the squirrels, and my neighbors. And now it's gone.