It's Terminal (but there is always hope somewhere)

One of the things that sold me on this house when we bought it in ’04, was the Catalpa tree. I have loved these interesting trees since we lived in Minnesota. They have huge heart shaped leaves, incredibly fragrant flowers, and long slender pods that form in late summer. Ours is probably 40 feet tall and the trunk is more than 2 feet diameter. It has the perfect branch for a swing for our Granddaughter.

Now, I knew that the poor thing was located way too close to the house. It is literally 2 feet from the back corner. I think what happened is this. When the previous owners and builders of this house moved in back in ’55, they planted the Catalpa in the backyard. At that time it was 20 feet from the corner of the house. As time went on and their family grew to 5 kids, they built an addition…right up to the Catalpa tree. I’m sure many main roots were cut to accommodate the foundation. Then they placed a paver in sand type patio around it and life went on.

So here we are 54 years later, and the poor thing is dying. I have sought the opinions of a professional arborist. There is no hope. It may have a year, maybe 2. In any case, it looks terrible. The leaves that it has are small, by catalpa standards. There is a lot of dead branches. It is struggling to make a few flowers. The worst part: the ants have moved in.

Carpenter ants. I have seen many outside. They are all over the tree. More so at night. There is a large crack in the bark, up high, that they are going in and out of. I know that these are a symptom and not what is killing the tree. To make matters worse, the ants are now in the house. I was hoping to squeeze a little time out of our catalpa before footing $1000 to have it taken down. But with the ants in the house, can I risk the wait? I don’t think so. In the meantime, I’m trying ant traps.

We will be losing our only source of shade on our patio. I am going to have to come up with something clever. I can’t imagine what a loss this is to our property value. There really is no room or excuse to put another tree in an already crowded space.

I do have a glimmer of a silver lining here. A few years ago I gave my sister and brother-in-law a seedling catalpa that had helped itself in the perennial bed. They planted it in a rather wide open place on their couple of acres. It is doing well, I’m told. Oh Mother Nature, you are so wise.