Woolly adelgid
I’ve lived in my house on Bartram Road for eight years now, and it’s hard to believe how fast time has flown! I’ve been blessed with four grandchildren, a long-living dog and one of my three sons and his family living so close I can walk to his house in minutes, another living a mere half an hour away.
I’ve also been blessed with mature trees in my yard, including seven magnificent white oaks, a hickory, three massive rhododendron and 27 full grown hemlock trees.
My house is great, but because of these trees, I was sold on it before I even opened the front door. The flamboyant rhododendrons had just erupted in deep fuchsia blossoms that were showcased by the lush thick stand of mature hemlocks surrounding the property. Literally, I couldn’t see the house next door or the one across the street because the needles were so thick and full.
Those hemlocks had me at “gorgeous privacy fence” but I later learned they are beneficial to wildlife, providing food and habitat for two of my favorite birds, the adorable black-capped chickadee and the irresistible goldfinch. With root systems that are buffers for storm water runoff, these magnificent evergreens protect our house and yard from water that runs down the steep hill in front of our house.
Forget for a minute the good the serve and focus on the property value of the house. Many, many houses on the mountain are accentuated or even surrounded by these magnificent evergreens. But they are all compromised because of a plague of tiny insects called woolly adelgid.
Imagine if they succumb to the insidious woolly adelgid. Left untreated, a brown dead tree skeleton will greet guests at your home. You have to take it down, and you are lucky to pay only $2,000 to do that, not counting getting rid of the stump.
But worse that that is the issue of replacing these massive trees. It can’t be done. Say you get another large evergreen tree: cha-ching cha-ching. Plus, the bigger the tree, the harder they are to establish, at least in my experience. And there is no way the new replacement will be as grand as the hemlock you had in the first place.
The first thing I did when we closed on this house was to call Jimmy Stewart and ask him what to do to protect my hemlocks. He advised me on my options, and I did exactly what he said.
Let’s just say that if my hemlocks don’t make it, it won’t be for lack of trying.
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Ferris Robinson is the author of three children’s books, “The Queen Who Banished Bugs,” “The Queen Who Accidentally Banished Birds,” and “Call Me Arthropod” in her pollinator series “If Bugs Are Banished.” “Making Arrangements” is her first novel and is available in paperback and on Kindle. “Dogs and Love - Stories of Fidelity” is a collection of true tales about man’s best friend. She is the editor of The Lookout Mountain Mirror and The Signal Mountain Mirror.
Ferris Robinson