There were trees growing in our gutter. Not one or two. A small green forest of maple seedlings, two inches tall, rooted in a wet mat of seeds along the back gutter right over the kitchen window. I found them from the top of the extension ladder in early June, and I'll admit I laughed before I started scooping.
The silver maple in the back corner of our yard is the biggest tree on the block. It shades most of the backyard by midsummer, it's the first thing you see from the kitchen sink, and every spring it drops what feels like a million helicopters, the winged seeds that spin down in a breeze. This year they came down in waves from late May into June, and a lot of them landed in the gutters and stayed.
Cleaning up after it
The back of the Cape has low eaves, so I can reach the gutters from the 24-foot extension ladder set pretty short, which is about my comfort level. I don't like ladders much above 12 feet, and I'm not ashamed to say so. I set the ladder on flat ground, moved it every few feet instead of leaning, and scooped the seed mat into a bucket hanging from a rung.
The back gutters on the house and the garage took most of a Saturday morning. The downspout elbow at the northeast corner was packed solid, so I took it apart on the ground and flushed it with the hose. Helicopters were also sprouting in the lawn, on the driveway, in the cracks of the back stoop and, to Tessa's irritation, all over her new raised beds. She pulled seedlings out of the tomato bed every evening for a week.
Moose's contribution was trying to catch the helicopters as they spun down. He's never caught one. He does not seem discouraged.
What the arborist told us
Cleaning gutters is my job. The tree itself is not. Anything above ladder height with a saw is something I hire out, no debate. A neighbor two houses down had good things to say about an arborist who'd taken down a dying ash for them, so I called and asked him to look at our maple. He came on a Friday afternoon, walked around it twice, looked up for a long time and then gave us his opinion.
The short version:
- The tree is healthy overall. No signs that it's in trouble.
- There's a fair amount of deadwood in the crown, some branches as thick as my arm. That's the stuff that comes down in a storm.
- Silver maples grow fast, and fast wood tends to be weaker. They're known for dropping limbs in wind and ice.
- One big limb reaches out over the detached garage. He didn't think it needed to come off now, but he said, "Watch the big limb over the garage," and told us what to look for: cracks where it meets the trunk, leaves that brown early on that limb only, and any new lean.
His quote to remove the deadwood and do some light clearance pruning was $1,100. He suggested waiting for winter, when the tree is dormant and the leaves are off. Then it's easier to see the structure, the cuts are less stressful for the tree and the frozen ground is kinder to the lawn when they bring equipment in.
What we're doing about it
We're not taking the tree down. Tessa was firm on that before the arborist even got out of his truck, and I agree. It shades the back of the house in July, it's beautiful in October and the yard wouldn't look like ours without it.
We are planning the pruning for this winter. Tree work isn't a repair in the way our house fund defines it, so the $1,100 will come out of savings, and I've put it on the house sheet as a winter line item so it doesn't sneak up on us. The garage roof is old 3-tab shingles from the nineties, and I'd rather not test it against a falling branch.
Meanwhile, we live with the helicopters. I'll check the back gutters again in July and plan on cleaning them more than once this fall, when the leaves come down over about three weeks. Gary has started mentioning gutter guards every time he sees me on the ladder. I'm not convinced yet, but I've noticed I'm starting to listen.
For now, I look up at that big limb every time I walk out to the garage. It looks fine. I'll keep looking.
