RED ALERT -- OUR PROPERTY RIGHTS DENIED IN SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

[Jonez712]

Recently, my family has decided to do some work on our backyard, which includes felling some useless trees. As many of you probably know, this is one of the most liberal counties in the country. In fact, Santa Cruz county employs more people than any other county in the state, aside from Los Angeles county. And the difference here is that our county has a population of less than 150,000, and Los Angeles county has a population of over 10 million...

Naturally, with this kind of ulta-liberal collectivism going on in a county, the Board of Stupidvisors will get out of hand. These mentally-warped fools have passed certain regulations, supposedly in the name of saving the "enviiiiironnnmeennt," that are outright un-Constitutional violations of our property rights. In an effort to save "old grooooowwwth," the illiberal stupidvisors have made felonious to fell a tree, a TREE, in your own backyard, on your own property that you bought and that you own, without a permit, which costs time and money to obtain.

So now we have to go down to the big county building (a shrine to liberalism) and get down on our knees and beg permission from the almighty stupidvisors to simply cut down a couple trees on our own property.

Sounds like a great liberal idea, doesn't it??

[muawiyah]

This is about where Redding is, right? Santa Cruz County?

From the East of the Mississippi perspective, it is a desert.

Dope growing business is big out there too, right? They like those trees kept in place so the federales can't see what's going on.

Does that play a part in this case?

[Jim Robinson]

Defending my private property rights. See ya.

[bvw]

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/woodland/msg0213282514048.html

[bvw]

In addtion to the copper nails -- which you should pull out before the trees are taken down, or the city inspects them ...

If you can pull the bark away from near the base without making it obvious that will weaken the tree and expose it to insects. I had lightning hit a multi-trunked black locust. and it killed the trunks by delaminating the bark -- at first we didn't see any damage -- but the leaves all died.

I wanted the locust, fortunately the root was still good and quickly sent up new shoots. The tree is back.

Another technique is trench around the tree and cut the roots. That will cause die back and weaken it. Depends on whether the tree has shallow roots or a big feeder root winding to a water source near ground level. Trees need water.

If the trees are watered by runoff from a drain -- reroute the drain.

Overly aggressive pruning in mid-summer heat another good way to weaken a tree.

[ETERNAL WARMING]

There is a product that you can buy that will rot tree stumps. We had an obnoxious bush that wouldn't die..kept coming back. We packed on the root rot and it died in no time! Perhaps if you drill into the roots and pour the stuff in, it'll do the trick. I can't remember what it's called, but we got it at Walmart. Probably most garden centers carry it.

[Feiny]

Not as bad as Santa Monica. They tried to make it a requirement that all new homes & any renovations MUST put in wheelchair access to make private homes handicap friendly.

The proposal failed....this time.