Why we don't recommend Silver Maples 'round these parts.

[The Ent]

Here are some shots from just my block of my road in Allen.

9 out of 10 (times a few dozen) trees in the area that are badly damaged are Silver Maples. The other 10% are mostly Hackberries or Bradford Pears.


The above is one of the worst ones.


Closer look -note that outside the wood looked fine but how rotted and sick the inside was.


Neighbors that learned their lesson and called for a removal the next day.


BUNCH of houses with stuff like this in front yard for pickup today.


To be fair we did find some Red Oak damage. My oldest son is holding the largest example to be found.


Note that this all looked much worse last night before the city cut up and hauled away the largest parts hanging into the street.

How'd everyone else fare?

[sandih]

I have 2 HUGE silver maples in my house, one in front and one in back. No, I did not plant them. They tower over my house and must be at least 30 years old. I was so surprised that we didn't lose major branches with the wind in that storm.

I hope everyone else did as well.

[lou_midlothian_tx]

The worst damage that I've seen are bradford pears. Of course, that's not surprising...

My shumard oak which was about 10 feet tall snapped in half. It turned out that there was preexisting problem. There was a branch that was partially split from the trunk and caused some rotting. I tried to fix it before the storm came but it didnt work out. I think it's the V angle branch that caused the problem. I suppose from now on, if I see V angle branch, prune it. The tree is now 3 inches tall stub, about 2 inches caliper. I'm going to see if it'll resprout from the trunk.


My shantung maples acted like it was nothing!

[Tricky Grama]

I was going to post about the trees downed in my neighborhood but forgot...yes, they were almost all silver maples. Surprisingly, no bradford pears. The old hackberries were also relieved of a few huge branches.

Patty

[gsblake]

I work in Plano at Frito-Lay headquarters. The few trees that I saw damaged - 3 of them in different spots on the property - are Chinese Pistachios. The oaks and elms made it through just fine. I didn't realize Chinese Pistachios were susceptible to storms. Or was this just a fluke?

[Tree Dude]

Trinity Park of Fort Worth was a mess. Most of it was under water( most of the water was gone with in the next day). It was stinky. Limbs were all over the place. The most damage trees where the cedar elms. A hackberry, a pecan, and a dead or dying bur oak was blown down(the bur oak needed to come down). Interestingly, my favorite bur oaks were not damage. I did not see any live oaks damage.
At the botanical gardens, lacebark elm blown over. A shumard red oak got a big zap from lightning.
Interestingly again, none of the healthy trees where damage. All had exposed root flares.

This is the reason why you should plant high quality trees AND plant them high qualitily.

Tree Dude