This tree was marked for take down after a lengthy discussion with the homeowner. The 110 year old tree had been in decline after sustaining root damage from a retaining wall put in a few years prior. The two stems leaned away from the client’s yard over their neighbor’s back patio. The client had concern for falling dead material over the neighbors home and high use patio. Watching the tree continue to decline motivated the client to make the decision to remove the tree as opposed to only pruning the deadwood again. This tree was incredibly complicated to remove. It called for extensive amounts of rigging and care to bring down, every limb had to be carefully cut and lowered into the 12’X16′ drop zone. 


It was important to the client to save the plants below the Madrona so a small lean to was built to save the rare rhododendron from falling limbs. The two stems measured 28″ and 33″ consecutively and the tree when cut to grade measured 42″ across. All the useable wood from the tree was saved, it was milled on-site using an alaskan mill. Some of the wood was sold to Urban Hardwoods. The rest of the wood is dried and stacked at Heritage Millworks in Port Angeles awaiting order. The slabs were cut at 3″ to allow for movement when the wood dried and so that tables or mantles could be cut from the slabs.