Residents ponder fate of headless trees
January 1, 2010
By J.B. Wogan
By J.B. Wogan
So, five naked cedar trees sit outside a Starbucks.
“A lot of people think we cut them down,” said Mason Cheung, 19, a barista at the Starbucks by Eastlake High School. Cheung, who lives down the street by Pine Lake, said customers keep asking about the trees.
“No one really likes how they look,” Cheung said.
The story behind the trees, whose heads were lopped off one day in November, is that they were either dead or well on the way to dying.
Sammamish Public Works Director John Cunningham said the city had two arborists examine the trees. The consensus was that two were dead and the other three would die in the next few years.
“We wanted to take them down before they fell down in a windstorm,” Cunningham said.
The city was originally going to hack them down completely, but City Councilwoman Michele Petitti suggested a different plan at the Nov. 10 council meeting. Petitti said the trees should be made into works of art.
In a later interview, Petitti said she was envisioning animal representations, perhaps a school of salmon or a family of critters.
“That could be fun, add a little point of interest,” she said.
Today, the trees are five column-like trunks, 20 feet in height. Cunningham said some of the trees were as tall as 100 feet before being cut down. The cost of downsizing the trees was $2,280.
Bill Monahan, a biology teacher at Eastlake, was sitting with two former students at Starbucks, with a view of the trunks through the window. He thought the trees should be refashioned into totem poles.
“That would tie in well with the City Hall theme,” Monahan said.
Cunningham said his staff would come to the Sammamish City Council in early 2010 with several proposals from wood carvers.
Reporter J.B. Wogan can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com. To comment on this story, visit www.SammamishReview.com.
New, Jan. 1, 11:40 a.m.
So, five naked cedar trees sit outside a Starbucks.
“A lot of people think we cut them down,” said Mason Cheung, 19, a barista at the Starbucks by Eastlake High School. Cheung, who lives down the street by Pine Lake, said customers keep asking about the trees.
The extra-tall stumps sit along 228th Avenue. Photo by J.B. Wogan
“No one really likes how they look,” Cheung said.
The story behind the trees, whose heads were lopped off one day in November, is that they were either dead or well on the way to dying.
Sammamish Public Works Director John Cunningham said the city had two arborists examine the trees. The consensus was that two were dead and the other three would die in the next few years.
“We wanted to take them down before they fell down in a windstorm,” Cunningham said.
The city was originally going to hack them down completely, but City Councilwoman Michele Petitti suggested a different plan at the Nov. 10 council meeting. Petitti said the trees should be made into works of art.
In a later interview, Petitti said she was envisioning animal representations, perhaps a school of salmon or a family of critters.
“That could be fun, add a little point of interest,” she said.
Today, the trees are five column-like trunks, 20 feet in height. Cunningham said some of the trees were as tall as 100 feet before being cut down. The cost of downsizing the trees was $2,280.
Bill Monahan, a biology teacher at Eastlake, was sitting with two former students at Starbucks, with a view of the trunks through the window. He thought the trees should be refashioned into totem poles.
“That would tie in well with the City Hall theme,” Monahan said.
Cunningham said his staff would come to the Sammamish City Council in early 2010 with several proposals from wood carvers.
Reporter J.B. Wogan can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com.
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The bigger concern about the five mature trees is why are they all were dying. Some years back (about 3-5 years ago?) I happened to drive by when the adjacent sidewalk was being widened. I remember commenting to my son that they (construction workers & landscape crew) were killing those trees by covering the base of the trees too deep. I even wondered why the city was not supervising the activity. I’m no arborist or tree expert but my understanding is you can’t burry the base of a tree- it will kill it. You can burry the roots but not close to the base of the tree. About 12 t0 18 inces around the base must not be burried/coverd up. It will take a few years but a tree that has it base covered will die. So here we are some years later and five beautiful trees are gone. And people are concerned about what to do with the stumps. Surely the city of Sammamish has access to the services of an arborist and people on staff the know not to burry the base of trees.