Very strange, almost looks like someones been stripping it purposefully. It's a Norway Maple, fungus can destroy the bark, such as Hypoxylon Canker, but this honestly looks like its been done on purpose as the tree looks very healthy otherwise. It's likely to die from here.
Yes one of my friends did it as a “joke” not realising they’ve most likely just killed the tree. Is there nothing I can apply or wrap it in to maybe keep it alive?
Your friend 100% killed the tree, there is no chance of recovery. It might live a year or so, but there's absolutely 0 chance of saving it. this is called "girdling" a tree and its done by arborists to guarantee a tree dies.
Your friend has cost you hundreds of dollars to buy a new tree, and more to remove and dispose of this one when it inevitably dies.
Seriously... I cant imagine how stupid someone would have to be to not realize this is a catastrophic thing to do.
Go over to his house and smash in his game console or computer. Equally as funny a 'joke'. Way cheaper to replace too.
The extreme form of someone peeling the label off their beer bottle.
This took a lot of effort, who TF wants to expend that much energy while drinking? I used to just want to sit & chat, not do surprise-demo on my friend's tree like an asshole
Worse yet, to kill a tree you only need a small ring near the bottom and you may get lucky it stays upright for a good while to give some value to insects that thrive on dead wood. Not great in your garden but in woodlands it's a great way to create diversity if you need to create some space. But this, is insane.
Alternatively, his friend performed a valuable ecological service by removing the invasive Norway maple from his local ecosystem 😂
Edit: ok guys I learned my lesson, I won’t make jokes about trees anymore
"something about being in my mid thirties has made me much more interested in both trees and law"
As a forester nearing mid thirties, I feel like I need this on a shirt lol
No, it's called girdling. The living part of the tree is bark and inside is just structure. Your friend basically yanked out the veins and arteries. I'm shocked at how little basic science knowledge people have. Reminds me of posts where people take a handful of seeds and plant them by pouring one heap on the ground. I don't understand what was the endgame.
You should invite your friend to take down the tree as that's just a project now and purchase another to replace.
I remember a few years ago seeing an infographic about different types of knowledge - it broke everything in the world down into like 9 different categories. One of which was nature / the natural world. It is just astounding how little people can know about the natural world anymore.
People who live in cities are only exposed to street trees (if the city even supports them) and small green areas for recreation. A lot of people live in cities
It's true. Sad (in my eyes) but true. Based on what I've heard at natural resource conferences, there is a continuing trend of increasing outdoor recreation in more urban populations. Hopefully with that comes knowledge and appreciation!
On a nature trail near me, some kid with a machete hacked into the side of a big tree for no apparent reason. Just to chunk the bark off and test out his blade, I think, maybe 15 minutes of "fun" if that.
The wound is was open and weeping, and there's no way the tree can heal over it. So eventually the tree is going to die. Probably the kid didn't even realize what he'd done.
There was a so called "arborist" in another thread OP made that said yea the bark will regrow since it's so early in the season. Unfortunately, that defies basic biology.
I don’t think i’m gonna go down the legal route but i’ll definitely be making him pay for removal and replacement. Thanks everyone for your help and advice
Hopefully your friend, despite acting like a dumbass here, steps up and does the right thing here. It will definitely tell you if he's a friend worth keeping at least. Between proper tree removal and stump-grinding and replacement of a similar size tree (trees this size are expensive), this could be $1,500+ of damage and that's on the low end.
I’d think more like $2500+ when all is said and done to be honest. Maybe it just depends on the area but where I live the removal likely costs around $1500-$2000. Expensive prank, and cruel to boot
“Where you live” is probably a big part of the cost.
I’m having 3 trees removed and 3 more heavily pruned at a cost of $3600.
At least where I live, it doesn’t cost nearly as much as people would expect. The person you responded to is probably a lot closer with the included cost to actually replace the tree.
Removal and pruning is expensive where I live, and it’s been a while since we had it done. We have 3 cedars and 2 Douglas firs, and a few maples and fruit trees.
Our neighbor had a mature cedar removed and it was pretty expensive, obviously it was way bigger than OPs maple though
I could see paying that if it’s a very tall tree near a structure but this tree looks like it’s about 15-20 ft tall. Where I live I’d saw it down and burn it
Yeah. This isn’t a joke- your ‘friend’ isn’t funny and after he pays for removal and replacement I hope he is removed from folks allowed at your home.
Really shitty destructive behavior. Is this seriously an adult? This is some teenage property damage bullshit. What a freaking idiot.
If he refuses to take care of it, you definitely should go the legal route. Your friend is a moron. Even if he didn't know it'd kill the tree, it still permanently altered the appearance of something that wasn't his.
Unsolicited advice: Please don’t agree on a dollar amount until you get a handle on the termites/carpenter ants situation in your neighborhood, which could threaten your house as well. Dead tree + roots attract and then the industrious little bastards go from there. Sorry.
The bark is the living part of the "tree", the wood inside is like the bones. What your friend did was like ripping all the skin & flesh off an animal, there's no way to "save" it anymore. The "tree" is gone.
I know you said you're not going to go the legal route, but consider if you think this friend will still be so willing to pay for removal and replacement when the costs go into the several thousands of dollars. That's a pretty old, decorative maple, I could see a replacement being $5-10k depending where you live.
Nah, your friend definitely killed your tree!
That sucks, maples approaching that size would likely cost a few thousand if not close to 10,000…
I personally would sue your ”friend” for damages
Very strange joke, and it's always sad to lose a tree, so I am really sorry this happened to you. Not sure where you are located, but if you are in North America and want a silver lining: in most areas of NA Norway maple is considered invasive, so maybe this is a good chance to plant something else.
Honestly I consider Norway maple to be pretty insidiously invasive. They look nice a quickly grow into a large shade providing tree, but they spread like wildfire (at least in New England), shade an immense amount of light later on, and don’t seem to grow “smart” (not sure what the term is) and by that I mean sending out hundreds of longgg branches prone to falling. I really really hate how they’ve replaced so many of our native trees
They were seen by many in the horticultural industry as a miracle tree: tolerant of urban conditions, fast growing, disease resistant, and they come in variety of attractive cultivars. Unfortunately they don't play nicely with local flora in North America. Here in Nova Scotia, there's a lot of talk about their propensity for snapping in windstorms, but I don't know how well founded that idea is.
I don’t know if the thousands of pounds of fallen branches in my back yard are acceptable as scientific evidence, but I’m leaning towards them not being the most sturdy in wind lol
Haha, that's fair, but I should add that I meant when compared to native maples. We have a lot of red maples on our property, and they seem to provide an almost never ending supply of firewood...
Seems to be that they suffer from the same malady as the Bradford Pear, growing all of their branches from the same center point. The resulting mass and wind load is too much, and they break at the big common joint.
Hi from Ottawa!
We had remove ours this week. It split partway in a derecho a couple of years ago, and we didn't know until an arborist came recently that they don't heal.
Exactly this:
a friend of my former partner thought it would be *funny* to put his arms, up to the elbow, into my tank to "fake-grab" my fish during a party we were hosting at our place
I was in the kitchen, and when I went back to the living room, I immediately asked him to take his arms out, but it was too late:
It was during the summer, and he was covered in sunscreen; my fish died a few hours later
...
I will never get those people
Did they think bark grows back or something? I cannot fathom an adult permanently disfiguring a tree, at **someone else’s home** and thinking that is alright
I don’t know *much* about trees, but the fact that people carve their initials in them, then revisit it later is a VERY common pop culture trope. Purely from this, I am able to deduce bark is not regenerative. I would have assumed this was not an experience unique to me, and would form a baseline in everyone’s understanding of it.
You'd think, but some people just aren't very good at putting 2 and 2 together. It's probably an interest thing as well. They probably just don't care about trees so they never thought about it.
Bark is regenerative! Just not if you remove ALL OF IT and expose the very thing that produces it in the first place. Also, depends very much on the tree! But your line of thought is right, it doesn't magically reset every month or so
Bark does grow back on some trees from a state that looks like this, though not so thoroughly stripped. Sycamores shed substantial amounts of bark, down to a smooth new bark in patches. As do madrone, which shed their entire bark layer yearly. This isn’t exactly normal for a maple though. If the bark wasn’t ready to come off on its own, and pulled the cambium off with it, this would be a mortal wound.
A friend of yours stripped a whole tree trunk from bark as a “joke”? Wtf is that even. This would have taken so much longer than a “joke” should take. Unfriend this friend.
Friend basically committed murder as a “joke”. I don’t usually consider killing plants as “murder” but, killing a established tree like this always gives me a massive heartache like someone had died.
I see you're getting some conflicting opinions about whether or not the tree will die, here's one more:
The reason it was so easy to peel is related to the time of year, this is when the vascular cambium is actively producing new xylem and phloem, and it is easier to peel because of that. It's easy and fun to do when you're doing it on purpose, but frustrating when you bump the tree with equipment and take a big chunk off.
The tree will almost certainly die, but it might not happen immediately. Trees can "survive" girdling for years when the xylem isn't compromised: it is able to draw water up through the xylem to the leaves, but not return the products of photosynthesis back down through the phloem, which is totally removed here. It might dry and die faster here with the amount of surface area removed.
Sometimes the cambium survives in places and where that connects above and below the girdling can give the tree a chance. I've only seen that across a few inches, I would not expect it to happen here.
If this is the size it looks like (~4" branches, 6" trunk?) you or your now-sober friend could reasonably handle the removal with a hand saw, making the same cuts as usual when pruning large branches--from below about 1/3d and then from above, about an inch farther away from the trunk. After removing each branch, cut the main trunk at whatever height you want it. Wear safety glasses.
It might sprout if you do this, if it does and you want to work with that, select one of the sprouts from as close to the ground as possible and prune off the rest (the original stump will rot over time, so if you leave one higher up it will be weak at that point).
Depending where you live, you might not want to work with the sprouts or replace with another Norway maple. That species is aggressively invasive in some ecosystems, if you live near native hardwood forests in the US you might consider something else.
Thats wild. If you didnt know the bark is the "living" part of a tree. If its taken off theres no tree. Just a core of fiber used to transfer water and nutrients. Natives used to take the bark off the base of trees to kill it before harvesting it later, its called girdling.
If your "Friend" did this I suggest going to r/treelaw for further legal action. You should be financially compensated for this. P.S. kick this person out of your life is this was their idea of a "joke"
Wellp, this would have ended my friendship with this person for sure. I hope they come through for you and pay the damages. This would hurt me to have a tree die and I’m sorry if you’re going through a tough time because of this.
It isn't common knowledge, though. It should be, but it isn't. This is why this post exists, in the first place, and why on the arborists sub people regularly ask about tree survival post weedeater ringing, usually multiple times per week.
Who the hell has the time and energy to peel an entire tree as a joke?? I genuinely can’t imagine how someone would even conceive of such a ridiculous idea, let alone actually do it. I’m wondering whether your friend is just incredibly stupid, on something, suffering from a recent brain injury or all of the above.
Damn...a crimson king . It takes a decade to grow that much. I am so sorry. A tiny sapling here in Ontario is like $300.
Your ex friend should pay for all the damages, removal and replacement of the tree.
In your other post you said it was your drunk friend…
https://preview.redd.it/58xe2q6upd8d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ba2e1821d40f0d3f0abb18172ee63c0aa39cc44c
Im sorry but that tree IS dead.the only Hope IS he regrow from the roots Next year but the whole tree IS dead you can cut It.The same thing happened to me a couple of years ago with another type of maple. A ram head-butted all the bark from the ground up to 1.5 metres. The top of the tree seemed alive because of the sap that was left inside but it finally died. The luck is that the following year it began to sprout from the base and grew at a spectacular speed.
Bud. You're gonna need to charge this 'friend', cuz they just destroyed what I estimate to be... hm... A 5-6ish inch caliper crimson king norway maple can go for well over 1000 dollars. [https://www.bigtrees4u.com/select-your-tree/shade-trees-3/maple-4/](https://www.bigtrees4u.com/select-your-tree/shade-trees-3/maple-4/) Here's one site that has the bigguns for more like 1800, but it varies and I can't really tell the size from the pics. If I were you I'd take a measurement of the trunk circumfrence, then look up prices at that size. Easier than height, generally.
I'm not saying to pursue legal action, but I would honestly at least talk with them about the possibility. If they truly didn't understand, they really need to learn that destroying very expensive property is, well. Stupid. Unless they have a lot of money laying around, lol.
PLEASE READ! YOU CAN MAYBE SAVE THE TREE.
And by saving the tree i mean keeping it alive, not make it thrive again. But it may be your best bet if you want the same tree in the same position in your garden.
I think that your only chance is cutting it to a stump! This way you can signal to the tree that it has in fact "a problem" and it can try to survive by putting new growth out.
In this state the tree risks bad infections and the nutrients from the roots are being transferred to foliage (under the white cambium there are channels that go upwards) but not vice versa!! The energy and sugars from the foliage cannot reach the roots, and if it continues like this the whole root system will for sure die off first.
You can try a slanted cut / just above a gem if you can find one that down on the tree, otherwise do a low horizontal cut and hope for the best.
Please make OP read this!!!!
You already learned that the tree is dead, but hear me out. Take off more of the bark further up, as much as you can.
Cut off the smaller branches and chop down the tree. Now you can use it as decoration and maybe hang some lights in it?
Very strange, almost looks like someones been stripping it purposefully. It's a Norway Maple, fungus can destroy the bark, such as Hypoxylon Canker, but this honestly looks like its been done on purpose as the tree looks very healthy otherwise. It's likely to die from here.
Yes one of my friends did it as a “joke” not realising they’ve most likely just killed the tree. Is there nothing I can apply or wrap it in to maybe keep it alive?
What kind of crackheads are you hanging out with???
Crackheads dont have the patience. This is meth, with the promise of more meth under the bark.
I wonder how he felt when he peeled the very last piece of bark off the tree and didn’t get his reward.
Your friend 100% killed the tree, there is no chance of recovery. It might live a year or so, but there's absolutely 0 chance of saving it. this is called "girdling" a tree and its done by arborists to guarantee a tree dies. Your friend has cost you hundreds of dollars to buy a new tree, and more to remove and dispose of this one when it inevitably dies.
We just bought a much smaller maple tree than this for $350, and I think OP deserves a large replacement tree for a lot more. What a stupid prank
“Friend”
=Stupid
“Prank”
And the tree and stump removal on top.
Yeah, buying and planting a tree that large can easily be $5,000 or more
Plus, the cost of removing the murdered one.
Removing the murdered “friend”?
r/treelaw
*it was just a joke bro. I’m not paying $3.5k, there’s no way that’s “half”*
Seriously... I cant imagine how stupid someone would have to be to not realize this is a catastrophic thing to do. Go over to his house and smash in his game console or computer. Equally as funny a 'joke'. Way cheaper to replace too.
Or go peel the skin off the "friend" and see how they like it.
Username... yeah
:,D
Yo
LOL YOUR NAME
OP said in a different sub that the friend was drunk, not that it was a joke.
That's a wild thing to do drunk. That looks almost perfect.
The extreme form of someone peeling the label off their beer bottle. This took a lot of effort, who TF wants to expend that much energy while drinking? I used to just want to sit & chat, not do surprise-demo on my friend's tree like an asshole
Drunk and also abusing adderall.
Seems methy to me.
same thing
Maybe it was a drunk joke before they were sloppy drunk? 🤷♀️ Really wild thing to do, though, yes.
I always hate the drunk excuse.
or get a lawyer
r/treelaw
Worse yet, to kill a tree you only need a small ring near the bottom and you may get lucky it stays upright for a good while to give some value to insects that thrive on dead wood. Not great in your garden but in woodlands it's a great way to create diversity if you need to create some space. But this, is insane.
If memory serves, I believe it only takes a one inch strip completely around the tree to kill it. 🫤
That sounds right. I’ve seen fruit trees killed from weedeaters girdling them at the bottom, so it doesn’t take much
Agreed I’d make them pay for removal and a new mature tree.
Oh that is so sad. It was beautiful.
More like thousands of but 10s of thousands. Look at r/treelaw. Your friend is not funny or your friend.
All I'm going to say is have the friend pay for a new tree.
“Friend”
Alternatively, his friend performed a valuable ecological service by removing the invasive Norway maple from his local ecosystem 😂 Edit: ok guys I learned my lesson, I won’t make jokes about trees anymore
How can you tell it's invasive? OP didn't mention where they live
I appreciate that but let me introduce to you this wonderful thing called "consent" when it involves things that dont belong to you
I don't think he was serious about that, maybe he was just tryng to see the positive among the sea of shit.
That was kinda my goal yah, maybe I shoulda been more clear that killing someone’s tree is definitely still a dick move
Sounds insane or malicious.
Nah it's most definitely killed the tree.
It's r/treelaw time
OMG this is an awesome sub I'm so glad you shared. Something about being in my mid thirties has made me much more interested in both trees and law.
"something about being in my mid thirties has made me much more interested in both trees and law" As a forester nearing mid thirties, I feel like I need this on a shirt lol
I can make that happen!
Have you gotten excited by correctly identifying a bird yet? It’s one of the joys of aging lmao
What a douche
No, it's called girdling. The living part of the tree is bark and inside is just structure. Your friend basically yanked out the veins and arteries. I'm shocked at how little basic science knowledge people have. Reminds me of posts where people take a handful of seeds and plant them by pouring one heap on the ground. I don't understand what was the endgame. You should invite your friend to take down the tree as that's just a project now and purchase another to replace.
I remember a few years ago seeing an infographic about different types of knowledge - it broke everything in the world down into like 9 different categories. One of which was nature / the natural world. It is just astounding how little people can know about the natural world anymore.
People who live in cities are only exposed to street trees (if the city even supports them) and small green areas for recreation. A lot of people live in cities
It's true. Sad (in my eyes) but true. Based on what I've heard at natural resource conferences, there is a continuing trend of increasing outdoor recreation in more urban populations. Hopefully with that comes knowledge and appreciation!
On a nature trail near me, some kid with a machete hacked into the side of a big tree for no apparent reason. Just to chunk the bark off and test out his blade, I think, maybe 15 minutes of "fun" if that. The wound is was open and weeping, and there's no way the tree can heal over it. So eventually the tree is going to die. Probably the kid didn't even realize what he'd done.
Cambium layer
There was a so called "arborist" in another thread OP made that said yea the bark will regrow since it's so early in the season. Unfortunately, that defies basic biology.
Maybe cross our fingers that its cork or cinnamon.
You should look up r/treelaw, if you want to go the legal route
I don’t think i’m gonna go down the legal route but i’ll definitely be making him pay for removal and replacement. Thanks everyone for your help and advice
Hopefully your friend, despite acting like a dumbass here, steps up and does the right thing here. It will definitely tell you if he's a friend worth keeping at least. Between proper tree removal and stump-grinding and replacement of a similar size tree (trees this size are expensive), this could be $1,500+ of damage and that's on the low end.
I’d think more like $2500+ when all is said and done to be honest. Maybe it just depends on the area but where I live the removal likely costs around $1500-$2000. Expensive prank, and cruel to boot
“Where you live” is probably a big part of the cost. I’m having 3 trees removed and 3 more heavily pruned at a cost of $3600. At least where I live, it doesn’t cost nearly as much as people would expect. The person you responded to is probably a lot closer with the included cost to actually replace the tree.
Removal and pruning is expensive where I live, and it’s been a while since we had it done. We have 3 cedars and 2 Douglas firs, and a few maples and fruit trees. Our neighbor had a mature cedar removed and it was pretty expensive, obviously it was way bigger than OPs maple though
I could see paying that if it’s a very tall tree near a structure but this tree looks like it’s about 15-20 ft tall. Where I live I’d saw it down and burn it
Yeah. This isn’t a joke- your ‘friend’ isn’t funny and after he pays for removal and replacement I hope he is removed from folks allowed at your home. Really shitty destructive behavior. Is this seriously an adult? This is some teenage property damage bullshit. What a freaking idiot.
If he refuses to take care of it, you definitely should go the legal route. Your friend is a moron. Even if he didn't know it'd kill the tree, it still permanently altered the appearance of something that wasn't his.
Unsolicited advice: Please don’t agree on a dollar amount until you get a handle on the termites/carpenter ants situation in your neighborhood, which could threaten your house as well. Dead tree + roots attract and then the industrious little bastards go from there. Sorry.
(While banging on table) “TREE LAW! TREE LAW!”
why did they do it?
I guess he should be “former” friend. What is next? Burning your house down?
Gather your evidence and take them to court to replace/repay you for your $1000+ tree they destroyed.
That’s not your friend.
Time for small claims court. Thats easily 1k+ in property damage.
The bark is the living part of the "tree", the wood inside is like the bones. What your friend did was like ripping all the skin & flesh off an animal, there's no way to "save" it anymore. The "tree" is gone. I know you said you're not going to go the legal route, but consider if you think this friend will still be so willing to pay for removal and replacement when the costs go into the several thousands of dollars. That's a pretty old, decorative maple, I could see a replacement being $5-10k depending where you live.
Is your friend an idiot? What kind of joke is this?
What’s the joke?
Nah, your friend definitely killed your tree! That sucks, maples approaching that size would likely cost a few thousand if not close to 10,000… I personally would sue your ”friend” for damages
You should call a lawyer and sue your "friend". This is a crime, it's not a joke.
Your "friend" owes you a new tree.
WHAT? What was the joke? What were they trying to get a chuckle over by doing this? I’d be devastated. I’m devastated for you.
What the fuck. That's like a thousand dollars for removal, plus 3-500 for a replacement and about 10 years growth. What an absolute asshole.
Does your friend do meth?
"Friend"
Jokes on your friend now as he needs to buy you a new fucken tree!
Ex friend hopefully. Who the fuck destroys a tree as a joke?
You're "friend" is dumb. I'd get new friends.
Your “friend” is an idiot. Dump them before they do something more stupid with worse consequences. “It was just a prank, bro!”
What an idiot "friend"! Seriously, fucking google something before doing it.
cool friend OP
That is not a friend.
All you friend if they would live of you peeled 80% of their skin off.
Your friend owes you a new tree.
Joke? I thought they were drunk and peeled it off
r/treelaw You’re about to find out how good of a friend this really is. They destroyed your property. I hope they make it right.
All it takes is a few inch ring of bark removal to kill it. That’s how people kill trees. He’s not your friend. He’s a drunk.
bizarre for someone to think this is a joke. i wonder if they’d like to be skinned alive?
You need new friends.
Stop reposting and just ask a highly rated arborist near you
That's a Crimson King Maple, not just Norway.
On a serious note like a maples bark shouldn’t be this easily peel-able? It probably already had issues…..
I wondered about this myself!
Very strange joke, and it's always sad to lose a tree, so I am really sorry this happened to you. Not sure where you are located, but if you are in North America and want a silver lining: in most areas of NA Norway maple is considered invasive, so maybe this is a good chance to plant something else.
Honestly I consider Norway maple to be pretty insidiously invasive. They look nice a quickly grow into a large shade providing tree, but they spread like wildfire (at least in New England), shade an immense amount of light later on, and don’t seem to grow “smart” (not sure what the term is) and by that I mean sending out hundreds of longgg branches prone to falling. I really really hate how they’ve replaced so many of our native trees
They were seen by many in the horticultural industry as a miracle tree: tolerant of urban conditions, fast growing, disease resistant, and they come in variety of attractive cultivars. Unfortunately they don't play nicely with local flora in North America. Here in Nova Scotia, there's a lot of talk about their propensity for snapping in windstorms, but I don't know how well founded that idea is.
I don’t know if the thousands of pounds of fallen branches in my back yard are acceptable as scientific evidence, but I’m leaning towards them not being the most sturdy in wind lol
Haha, that's fair, but I should add that I meant when compared to native maples. We have a lot of red maples on our property, and they seem to provide an almost never ending supply of firewood...
Seems to be that they suffer from the same malady as the Bradford Pear, growing all of their branches from the same center point. The resulting mass and wind load is too much, and they break at the big common joint.
They share the same pruning procedure too, at least in my opinion lol
Definitely, and with prejudice?
One horizontal cut, as close to the ground as possible
The big problem is the insanely aggressive roots. They suck up all the water.
Hi from Ottawa! We had remove ours this week. It split partway in a derecho a couple of years ago, and we didn't know until an arborist came recently that they don't heal.
Followup to say if they are in North America, planting an oak suited to the climate is always an excellent option
I'd be so sad if someone did this to my garden. I wouldnt allow this person back onto my property personally. They are too thoughtless.
It’s criminal, too, right? It’s gotta be destruction of property at least.
hey man i killed your dog, its just a prank bro!
Exactly this: a friend of my former partner thought it would be *funny* to put his arms, up to the elbow, into my tank to "fake-grab" my fish during a party we were hosting at our place I was in the kitchen, and when I went back to the living room, I immediately asked him to take his arms out, but it was too late: It was during the summer, and he was covered in sunscreen; my fish died a few hours later ... I will never get those people
What happened after that? Did he get kicked out or slapped?
Hey man I released a box of inland taipans, the most venomous snake in the world, into your house. Chill! It's just a prank!
“I skinned your dog so you can slowly watch it die” 😒
[https://www.reddit.com/r/arborists/comments/1dlko4x/can\_this\_tree\_be\_saved/](https://www.reddit.com/r/arborists/comments/1dlko4x/can_this_tree_be_saved/)
This actually is so sad to look at.
Did they think bark grows back or something? I cannot fathom an adult permanently disfiguring a tree, at **someone else’s home** and thinking that is alright
Actually a lot of people do think bark grows back! Most people don't know anything about trees.
I don’t know *much* about trees, but the fact that people carve their initials in them, then revisit it later is a VERY common pop culture trope. Purely from this, I am able to deduce bark is not regenerative. I would have assumed this was not an experience unique to me, and would form a baseline in everyone’s understanding of it.
You'd think, but some people just aren't very good at putting 2 and 2 together. It's probably an interest thing as well. They probably just don't care about trees so they never thought about it.
Bark is regenerative! Just not if you remove ALL OF IT and expose the very thing that produces it in the first place. Also, depends very much on the tree! But your line of thought is right, it doesn't magically reset every month or so
Thanks for the info!
Bark does grow back on some trees from a state that looks like this, though not so thoroughly stripped. Sycamores shed substantial amounts of bark, down to a smooth new bark in patches. As do madrone, which shed their entire bark layer yearly. This isn’t exactly normal for a maple though. If the bark wasn’t ready to come off on its own, and pulled the cambium off with it, this would be a mortal wound.
Cork is made from bark cut from sobreiros, the bark grows back after some years
Maybe they try to learn but when they go to r/trees everyone is just talking about weed.
I thought bark grows back...at least I learned something new.
That's not disfiguring, that's treeslaughter!
Assault & Barkery
Sounds like a “friend” you should lose after they pay for it
A friend of yours stripped a whole tree trunk from bark as a “joke”? Wtf is that even. This would have taken so much longer than a “joke” should take. Unfriend this friend.
If that's what their friends are like, I'd hate to meet their enemies.
Friend basically committed murder as a “joke”. I don’t usually consider killing plants as “murder” but, killing a established tree like this always gives me a massive heartache like someone had died.
I'd be mad. Especially if it's a tree that I cherish. Looks like it would've been a great shade tree for that patio.
Give it 10 years and it would shade the whole house. 15-20 after that it’ll crash down on the roof killing you.
I see you're getting some conflicting opinions about whether or not the tree will die, here's one more: The reason it was so easy to peel is related to the time of year, this is when the vascular cambium is actively producing new xylem and phloem, and it is easier to peel because of that. It's easy and fun to do when you're doing it on purpose, but frustrating when you bump the tree with equipment and take a big chunk off. The tree will almost certainly die, but it might not happen immediately. Trees can "survive" girdling for years when the xylem isn't compromised: it is able to draw water up through the xylem to the leaves, but not return the products of photosynthesis back down through the phloem, which is totally removed here. It might dry and die faster here with the amount of surface area removed. Sometimes the cambium survives in places and where that connects above and below the girdling can give the tree a chance. I've only seen that across a few inches, I would not expect it to happen here. If this is the size it looks like (~4" branches, 6" trunk?) you or your now-sober friend could reasonably handle the removal with a hand saw, making the same cuts as usual when pruning large branches--from below about 1/3d and then from above, about an inch farther away from the trunk. After removing each branch, cut the main trunk at whatever height you want it. Wear safety glasses. It might sprout if you do this, if it does and you want to work with that, select one of the sprouts from as close to the ground as possible and prune off the rest (the original stump will rot over time, so if you leave one higher up it will be weak at that point). Depending where you live, you might not want to work with the sprouts or replace with another Norway maple. That species is aggressively invasive in some ecosystems, if you live near native hardwood forests in the US you might consider something else.
“I see you’re getting some conflicting opinions about whether or not the tree will die, here’s one more” 😂 💀
That's not a friend that would deliberately girdle a tree as a 'joke'. They killed your tree.
Thats wild. If you didnt know the bark is the "living" part of a tree. If its taken off theres no tree. Just a core of fiber used to transfer water and nutrients. Natives used to take the bark off the base of trees to kill it before harvesting it later, its called girdling. If your "Friend" did this I suggest going to r/treelaw for further legal action. You should be financially compensated for this. P.S. kick this person out of your life is this was their idea of a "joke"
Wellp, this would have ended my friendship with this person for sure. I hope they come through for you and pay the damages. This would hurt me to have a tree die and I’m sorry if you’re going through a tough time because of this.
No longer a friend. Sue his ass.
She dead son
[удалено]
It isn't common knowledge, though. It should be, but it isn't. This is why this post exists, in the first place, and why on the arborists sub people regularly ask about tree survival post weedeater ringing, usually multiple times per week.
Who the hell has the time and energy to peel an entire tree as a joke?? I genuinely can’t imagine how someone would even conceive of such a ridiculous idea, let alone actually do it. I’m wondering whether your friend is just incredibly stupid, on something, suffering from a recent brain injury or all of the above.
It’s like a Brazilian barkini wax
r/TreeLaw You could sue.
Damn...a crimson king . It takes a decade to grow that much. I am so sorry. A tiny sapling here in Ontario is like $300. Your ex friend should pay for all the damages, removal and replacement of the tree.
In your other post you said it was your drunk friend… https://preview.redd.it/58xe2q6upd8d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ba2e1821d40f0d3f0abb18172ee63c0aa39cc44c
I was going to ask if this was the same person!
Why did they post it on mildly infuriating when this is extremely infuriating if not devastating
Um he didn't say it wasn't here...
THANK YOU
Im sorry but that tree IS dead.the only Hope IS he regrow from the roots Next year but the whole tree IS dead you can cut It.The same thing happened to me a couple of years ago with another type of maple. A ram head-butted all the bark from the ground up to 1.5 metres. The top of the tree seemed alive because of the sap that was left inside but it finally died. The luck is that the following year it began to sprout from the base and grew at a spectacular speed.
You should press charges against your friend and get him to pay the full value of the tree.
How dumb can someone be...
Phloem?! More like killed ‘em!
Bud. You're gonna need to charge this 'friend', cuz they just destroyed what I estimate to be... hm... A 5-6ish inch caliper crimson king norway maple can go for well over 1000 dollars. [https://www.bigtrees4u.com/select-your-tree/shade-trees-3/maple-4/](https://www.bigtrees4u.com/select-your-tree/shade-trees-3/maple-4/) Here's one site that has the bigguns for more like 1800, but it varies and I can't really tell the size from the pics. If I were you I'd take a measurement of the trunk circumfrence, then look up prices at that size. Easier than height, generally. I'm not saying to pursue legal action, but I would honestly at least talk with them about the possibility. If they truly didn't understand, they really need to learn that destroying very expensive property is, well. Stupid. Unless they have a lot of money laying around, lol.
OP needs r/treelaw
It’s dead.
This tree is not going to survive.
https://preview.redd.it/x0e47zxuke8d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e6741dfb2c6d1e47e5b9f0637023351ce288b110 Uh oh
I can’t imagine keeping the company of someone like this, drunk or not. What a disgrace.
Your friend is stupid, and unfunny... If it were my tree I'd try to wrap something around the bare portion, cross my fingers, and hope for the best
Oh no, and it's such a beautiful tree. Now I'm sad.
JUST saw your other post too. Sorry about your tree.
Legit thought that 1st pic was an armpit.
Could it be a crepe myrtle? Seeing the foliage will help. Crepe myrtles do shed bark every year.
Crimson red Norway maple.
Your friend is a horrible human being.....wtf
Hot take, but if you're in the US, then good riddance. Norway Maples are invasive, and you're better off replacing the tree now.
gotta mark up for indecent exposure. srry, lad
Dang they were so on drugs the bark loss goes up the branches This is borderline impressive
Tf kind of joke is that
All bite, no bark eh?
I wonder what happens if I remove all the skin of a living being? 🤔🤔🤔 Should've tried it on themself first, just to get an educated hint.
PLEASE READ! YOU CAN MAYBE SAVE THE TREE. And by saving the tree i mean keeping it alive, not make it thrive again. But it may be your best bet if you want the same tree in the same position in your garden. I think that your only chance is cutting it to a stump! This way you can signal to the tree that it has in fact "a problem" and it can try to survive by putting new growth out. In this state the tree risks bad infections and the nutrients from the roots are being transferred to foliage (under the white cambium there are channels that go upwards) but not vice versa!! The energy and sugars from the foliage cannot reach the roots, and if it continues like this the whole root system will for sure die off first. You can try a slanted cut / just above a gem if you can find one that down on the tree, otherwise do a low horizontal cut and hope for the best. Please make OP read this!!!!
I wonder if you can at least use the wood for something nice
I would try painting it with tree safe paint. Its something.
r/arborists
I like a smooth tree, I think it's satisfying, I like how it feels. But rip tree.. you had a good life
The tree is now smooth like his friends brain
Yeah friends needs to remove and replace that sucks
It's a nudist
You already learned that the tree is dead, but hear me out. Take off more of the bark further up, as much as you can. Cut off the smaller branches and chop down the tree. Now you can use it as decoration and maybe hang some lights in it?
This person is not your friend. What a douche move.
Can you attempt an air layer to salvage a piece of the tree?
Sorry friend that sucks.