The mountains are calling, still

In Wilkesboro, at the edge of the Appalachian Mountains, this weekend, I came across a John Muir quote I had seen before: "The mountains are calling, and I must go."

Driving downhill Sunday afternoon toward the Coastal Plain, hundreds of feet below the place where I had spent two days and three nights, I thought about the Muir quote and felt the tug on my heart for the places I had been, where the horizon rises up, reaching for the sky. The mountains are a different place, not just a different topography but a different environment and a different culture.

The hardwood trees are leafing out now, giving an opaque green cloak to the hills and mountains. In the fall, they will wear different colors and in winter will shed their clothes and stand like starkly naked skeletons against the sky. We walked along a gravel road and crossed a burbling mountain stream, falling over rocks to make a soft song of comfort and ease. We sat on the screened porch and listened to the creek's lullaby.

Trees crowd the steep hills all around us, their roots giving aid to the granite stones to keep the hills in place. Here and there, a pasture interrupts the forest or a house peeks through the trees, but mostly the landscape is covered in trees, unlike farther east, where housing developments and huge farm fields erase nature from view. The sight of mountain trees beckons me and reminds me how long it has been since I visited.

Anyone who has spent any time among the hills knows mountain culture is different — simpler, earthier, less formal, some would say less refined — than a few hundred miles to the east. I am a part of that Coastal Plain culture and relish it, but still the mountains call. And when I go, I know I've been away too long. The arduous hike to the peak to look all around at hills and knobs and prominences is worth the effort. You can hear the mountains calling and feel the tug on your heart.

Toppled trees should be replaced

You would think that, after the devastating hurricanes of 1996 and 1999, Wilson would have few trees left for high winds to topple. But everywhere I go now, I see trees down and damage to homes that stood in the falling trees' paths.

I spent the day that Hurricane Irene struck and several days thereafter in Rocky Mount and did not get to see much of Wilson's damage. In terms of damage to the electrical grid, Rocky Mount clearly had it worse. There were still hundreds of Rocky Mount customers without power days after Wilson Energy announced its lines were fully restored. But that doesn't mean that there weren't many, many trees down on Wilson houses or across Wilson streets. Stately old willow oaks were twisted and wrenched from their trunks in many Wilson yards. Or big trees were ripped from the ground, their monstrous root ball exposed to the air. Some pines were snapped off high above the ground. In my yard, we had limbs and branches down, but the trees somehow managed to withstand the wind. We are worried about one sassafras, however. Its roots were lifted and partly exposed, and we could not pull the tree back to a fully upright position. I used an electric chain saw to trim back the tree and bring it more upright. We're hoping it will survive.

We want these trees to survive because they provide shade and charm to a neighborhood. That's why older neighborhoods, with stately trees and canopied streets look so much more appealing than stark new streets without a tree in sight. But there are dangers. Trees have a life span, and they incur diseases that leave them hollow and brittle. Add a little wind, and you can have a 70-foot obstruction in the street or a cleaver that chops off a roof gable. Still, if you look at Wilson from the seventh-floor board room of the BB&T Towers, you see green trees stretching to the horizon with a steeple or roofline here and there. The carpet of treetops seems as impenetrable as a shield. Those trees of our urban forest are our best antidote to the pollution created by our cars, trucks, power plants and furnaces. Without them, our streets would be barren, our yards inhospitably hotter and our air dirtier.

That's why I hope all of the trees lost to Hurricane Irene, as well as those toppled by Floyd and Fran, will be replaced with healthy, long-living and beautiful trees so that our landscape will always be charming and inviting.

Yard trees are blowin' in the wind

I recently passed a house in the neighborhood with a front yard that looked like a lumber yard. A half dozen or more huge pines had been cut, leaving tall, straight tree trunks lying askew all over the lawn. I had no way of knowing whether this was an effect of the April 16 tornadoes that uprooted and splintered trees all around Wilson or simply a landscaping decision. I do know that each time there's a powerful storm that topples trees, more healthy trees that survived the winds are sacrificed by homeowners as a preventative measure. We saw it happen in 1996 and 1999 after hurricanes Fran and Floyd, and I have no doubt that many homeowners, having seen trees that crashed through roofs last month, are contemplating getting rid of the trees in their yards.

Call me crazy, but I don't see the logic in destroying perfectly healthy trees to avoid what might happen sometime in some future storm. Although Hurricane Fran toppled hundreds of trees in Wilson, thousands of other trees withstood the same winds. The reward for such persistent strength should not be a chainsaw. The tall pines I saw lying horizontal recently were probably 50 years old or older. They cannot be replaced for at least 20 years. A snap decision to cut down a tree cannot be reversed for a generation, and some trees thrive for hundreds of years if allowed to grow unimpeded.

As to the idea that trees present an imminent danger to houses and other structures, I have a theory: Trees withstand wind better if they are grouped together. An isolated oak or pine is more likely to fall or splinter in a strong wind than a tree that has other trees nearby to buffer the winds. Homeowners who take out all but one or two trees might have been better off to leave the trees to stand together against the wind.

Dead or diseased trees have to be removed. I've had to remove two tall pines from my lot in the past few years because they had died. I hated to do it. I hate to take out trees (and not just because it's expensive) because I know I cannot replace them, and I will not see their beauty or enjoy their shade again in my lifetime. Homeowners who have a real phobia about winds should consider planting smaller trees, such as dogwoods and crape myrtles, that withstand winds well and don't do much damage even if they do fall.

Trees are treasures to be cultivated and enjoyed. They gobble carbon dioxide and replenish the oxygen in the air. Their leaves provide cooling shade in summer and compost through the winter. Their branches provide natural climbing gyms for young boys. Their towering heights inspire and amaze us. Their fall colors leave us in awe. They are focal points for landscaping.

Sometimes trees fall, causing damage or injury, but those incidents are rare. We should not cut down healthy trees for fear of wind just as we should not blow up the family car for fear of a traffic accident.

Loss of trees affects entire neighborhood

For all of the 30 years I've lived in Wilson, I have passed by the quiet glade of trees that flanked the site of Farmington Heights Church of God, seldom paying much attention to the mature pines and hardwoods that framed my drive along Raleigh Road Parkway. In the past few weeks, however, those trees have been cut, the entire tract of land scalped of trees and all vegetation, leaving nothing but dirt, mud and silt fences erected by the grading contractors.

The view above is not nearly as pleasant for passing motorists as the trees that had stood there for decades, but the people who are really hurt, and I suspect heartbroken, by this construction are those who live behind the lot on Buxton Drive. Their back yards, once concealed by the thick stand of trees, are now exposed to Raleigh Road traffic. Their privacy has been violated.

Perhaps it's unrealistic to think those trees could stand up to development pressure on the heavily traveled street, but developing a lot or building a house or other structure does not require the destruction of every living tree on the lot. The city of Wilson, which touts its "City of Trees" image and has a tree on its official flag, needs a tree ordinance that prohibits unnecessary destruction of mature trees. Trees or other barriers are required as buffers between different development zones, but regulations need to protect other trees, too. The folks on Buxton Drive know the impact of tree-cutting on adjacent lots — their privacy and their backyard environment are forever changed because the trees that hid and shaded their yards are gone. It will take another 20 years to grow replacements for those mature trees. Developers could leave trees along property lines that give shade and protection to neighboring properties. Property owners could be required to go through a review process before cutting down mature trees that add shade and charm to entire neighborhoods. Wanton cutting of trees affects every property owner in the neighborhood, so protecting trees is a collective, neighborhood interest.

Many years ago, residents of Cavalier Circle objected to the development of commercial properties on Ward Boulevard. The cutting of a small forest there for construction of offices threatened the value of their homes. That development left more trees and more privacy than the site above, however.

City officials, standing behind Wilson's Tree City USA image, have failed to address the protection of trees and, with it, the protection of residents' property values, privacy and neighborhood charm. Either give up the tree imagery or get serious about it.

A shady spot has lost its value

"He's got it made in the shade." That old expression came back to me as I was mowing the lawn in 90-degree midday heat. Part of the lawn was in bright sun. Part was in shade. The sunny portion of the yard was unbearably hot in my dark T-shirt and shorts. The portion shaded by a big chestnut oak was pleasantly comfortable with a soft breeze stirring the leaves.

I was reminded of youthful days before air conditioning, when summer Sunday afternoon visits often retired to the screened porch or to a couple of chairs dragged beneath a sheltering tree. Windows were thrown open to catch whatever breeze might stir. A shady tree provided quiet relief from the heat you could not otherwise escape.

People still complain about the heat on days like this, but those complaints carry less weight when the heat can be so easily escaped by simply walking into an air-conditioned house or turning up the AC in the car. And shade means so much less to us when there are better, more convenient and more liberating escapes from the midday heat. A big oak or maple that would have been a cherished asset 50 years ago has become an object of suspicion and doubt these days. There are the leaves that fall and must be raked. The tree's thirst for water competes with the fescue in the lawn. And a big tree can fall in a storm and destroy a house. Or so the thinking goes these days.

Many grand shade trees have been toppled as a prophylaxis against some future storm. What these timid homeowners are losing is the comfort of shade that can provide a quiet respite from outdoor heat and reduce the cost of air conditioning by reducing heat buildup on the home. And they might never understand what a cherished sanctuary a shady spot can be. They will never have it "made in the shade."

That which we cannot change

Numerous times since Saturday I've reminded myself of the aphorism attributed to St. Francis of Assisi about having the grace to accept the things you can't change. The thing my wife and I can't change is the loss of a backdrop of trees that were cut from our neighbor's yard. She has blogged about it here. Our side yard ends at a board fence, but that otherwise plain and homely fence was softened and graced by the low-hanging boughs of trees that hung over the top of the fence. Those overhanging boughs provided us dogwood blossoms in spring and colorful leaves in the fall. The contrasting red dogwood and yellow sassafras leaves, along with some shiny green magnolia leaves in the background created a certain charm and framed the plantings and decorations we had placed at the edge of our yard. (The photo above was taken last fall.) In a day of work with a crew of hired hands, our neighbor took out all the trees between our fence and his house, leaving only three tall pines, which we fear will also be cut.

All of the trees that were cut were on the neighbor's property. He was within his rights to cut the trees, despite my feeble hints, after the chainsawing began, that we really wished he'd keep the trees. This Tree City USA provides little protection for trees, which add so much to the flavor of a neighborhood. A Facebook post recently complained that the city had cut down three trees, with trunks 3 or 4 feet in diameter, in one block. The city can protect trees in the utility strip next to the curb — or not. But it cannot dictate to property owners what they do with trees on their property.

Perhaps some regulation of tree cutting would be appropriate. A neighbor recently commented that she had not realized what an across-the-street neighbor's cutting of some trees in his yard would mean to her. Those tall trees had shaded her front windows from the afternoon sun. When Hurricane Fran in 1996 took out several trees in our old neighborhood, we discovered how much those trees' shade had meant to us. Suddenly our front rooms were subjected to afternoon glare, even though the fallen trees had not been on our property. Wilson now has only one major street — the 700-800 blocks of Raleigh Road — with a canopy of trees. A couple of decades ago, Tarboro Street between the railroad tracks and Ward Boulevard was canopied, but those beautiful old oaks were cut down when the street was widened. A few residential streets are canopied, but most of these trees are aging and will need to be replaced.

The city requires building permits and demolition permits, why not tree-cutting permits for trees of a certain trunk diameter or height? Even when these trees are on private property, their presence affects nearby properties.

Nothing can be done to replace the neighboring trees we lost, and I'm trying to accept that which I cannot change, but some regulation of tree cutting might save the trees that give neighborhoods the shade and charm that are so precious — and so easily lost.