123 West Main Street - Pictures & Progress

This is a picture of the front (south) of 123 W. Main Street in June. It was our first visit with the realtor. Though I'd been looking at the outside for several months (with a very tiny, vague thought of ownership), this was the first time we went inside.

Check out the trees right up against the rear of the building! The roofline is a jungle.

After the sale closed (July 24), the most pressing need was to yank all the greedy green vine feet off the side of the building.

That's my husband, PC, in the white shirt, and our oldest son, PR, is taking a break on the tailgate.

Some of the worst foundation shoving plants, though, were not the vines (though the vines were certainly in the competition), but the trees: two kinds in particular.

The first has a very odd name: Tree of Heaven. While I am certain there must be trees in Heaven (what paradise could be without trees?), this one doesn’t have enough redeeming qualities to make it into any type of nirvana. It looks somewhat like a sumac tree, but its leaflets have a little ‘thumb’ on the bottom (I’ll remind myself to go take a picture), whereas a sumac’s leaflets are finely serrated.

Its immensely rapid growth rate may –perhaps- redeem it in some way, some where, next to the foundation of a 117 year old building is not such a good place. For that matter, next to any foundation is a bad idea.

After speaking to the previous owner (two owners before ourselves), I believe that all this growth was kept off the building before –about- 1995. So 12 years of growth. These trees were every bit of 40 feet tall! 40 feet in 12 years! It speaks well for shade. However, the roots found a firm hold in the small strips of soil right up next to the brick walls and just kept digging –through the dirt and the rocks and the cut-stone foundation and the brick. Bad for the foundation.

The wood of the Trees of Heaven (Hell) is spongy, soft, and pliable. I don’t know of any use for it. It also made it a bit tricky for PC to cut them safely. And (as if they needed another strike against them) they stink. Subtly stinky for most of the year, but when they go to flowering, they STINK. Like garbage. How appropriate.

So I didn’t feel too bad about helping to hack those out of there, but there was another tree back there that I was hesitant to axe. I wasn’t quite sure of its identity, mostly because it was too gargantuan, but I’m almost positive it was (note the past tense) a mulberry tree. !. See what I mean? Mulberries are supposed to grow on bushes, right? Well, yes, but these had far surpassed the bush stage and had been residing in the tree category for a very long time.

(Okay – I’ll dig out a picture of the leaves, if I can, mostly because I’m still not 100% sure of the identification. I’d appreciate any input here: botanist or backyard mulberry tree grower. Thanks.)

This is the west side view before beginning to clean-up. Those small trees (closest to the street) are new Trees of Hell, er...uh, Heaven. They are only 10-12 feet tall.

More in a bit...