Here's something I found a few years ago up in the Bronx. This was at the foot of a dead-end street near Baychester Avenue just off the Post Road. I was still driving around the Bronx for the real estate job then, and I was on this street to photograph a nearby house. As I was turning the car around at the end of the block, where the subway cut through, I spotted the tire at the base of the tree.
Looking again I realized it wasn't just at the base of the tree, it was around the trunk of the tree, completely encircling, like an Elizabethan collar, the trunk of what had to be a twenty-five foot tall maple. A tree this size would have been growing here for at least fifteen to twenty-five years, with the tire around it for most of the time. Or at least since the branches spread far enough and the trunk soared too high for anyone to drop a tire on from above.
Have a closer look. I've been there several times over the years, and have pictures from all sides, in all seasons. This is for real, no Photoshop tricks.
June 25, 2006
4 comments:
My guess is who ever planted the tree put the tire there at that time. If you look at the second photo you can see two areas of basal damage on the trunk. The tree had some injury in the past and the bark in growing over the damage like a scar. I bet it was not the first tree that was planted there and the owner was trying to protect this tree from the same fate of it's predecessor.
It's interesting to think it might be for protection..now that you mention it, I see that, although my first thought was "boy, the tree must be ticked off at whoever did that." It seems a little humiliating (and girth-limiting.)If a tree can be humiliated, that is. (Um, looking around me here at work in Jamaica, I see that they can...is that a condom in the branches?)
Do you know how to remove the tire? There is a tire around a tree by my house, and I would like to remove it. It is re-inforced with steel mesh, a hacksaw won't do it.
I believe the tire was dropped ten years ago, and the tree took root inside the tire after the tire was dumped there. Happens all the time, really.
Post a Comment