Our magnificent Tuart tree was a casualty of the storms last weekend. Three huge limbs snapped off like matchsticks. I got hold of the tree guys who had trimmed this tree earlier this year (Kings Tree Care) to arrange for them to come and saw, chip/mulch the fallen branches. I sent photos of the remains of the tree to the arborist but he said that it was unlikely that they’d be able to save it. So with great reluctance I decided to get them to cut it down to the stump. Such a shame. This tree was likely decades old, perhaps even 100 years or so old, maybe more.
Here are photos of the tree before it was pruned in February 2012, after pruning, and then a few photos of its last remaining minutes on this earth.
Tuart tree before its trim
Tuart tree after its trim
Tuart tree after the storm
Tuart tree nearly gone
Just a stump
A few days later, the stump grinder guy turned up and ground out the stump.
Stump ground out
A gaping hole where the tree used to be
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 
That storm sounded incredible! I’m so sorry about your tree. Though I am glad it didn’t land on you or on your house.
Comment via email from Joan: “So sad. I guess you noticed most of ours are down too….Oh well I guess ours may grow again – but that tree of yours was magnificent!”
Oh my! It will certainly take a while to get past the visual, to say nothing of the actual, loss of such a grand focal point! I always start to wonder: why now?, what made these circumstances so brutal?, how many other storms has it survived successfully?, etc. Glad your home, and you, were not injured in those storms! Hugs, D
Hi Doreen
Like you, I also wonder ‘why now’? That tree must have survived many storms over its lifetime. It wasn’t diseased, according to the arborist. The storms came from the direction they usually come from, and while this was the most ferocious storm in a couple of decades for this area, it sure wouldn’t have been the worst ever.
–Rhonda
Wow.
Wow. Definitely a completely different view now!
Must’ve been one heckuva storm to have lost those limbs AFTER having been recently pruned. So sad, too, having lived that long. Any idea how long those trees usually live?
Hi Sue
Finding out the life span of these trees took a while! There are some good general articles on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuart_forest and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus_gomphocephala), but neither mention the life span. However, this article (http://www.australiassouthwest.com/Things_to_See_and_Do/Nature_and_Wildlife/Forests) says they can live up to 500 years and have a girth up to 10 metres round. I didn’t measure the girth of our tree, but it was a few metres.
–Rhonda
Oh no. Your tree was still a bit of a baby then!!
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