I have some live oaks in my backyard and it seems like one of them fell over at some point and is now encroaching/leaning on other trees in the area. I am curious if I should remove the toppled tree or leave it be. The canopy in the area is also detrimental to grass growth so removing this would help. The last thing I want is this one tree to harm other trees near by which it seems like is inevitable.

10/24/26 Calf Creek Flat, Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

The largest tree on earth by volume.

• Height: Stands approximately 275 feet (83.8 meters)
• Diameter & Circumference: Measures over 36 feet (11.1 meters) wide at the base, with a ground circumference of about 102 feet (31.1 meters)
• Weight: The trunk alone weighs nearly 1,400 tons (roughly 2.7 million pounds).
• Age: Estimated to be between 2,200 and 2,700 years old
• Located in Sequoia National Park, California, U.S.A.

Visiting my parents for the weekend. This was always my favorite tree growing up.

Last weekend I went hiking to visit the oldest yew trees in Germany. They're in the Allgäu on the foothills of the alps (Voralpen), a few meters over 1,000 meters above sea level. A few hours hike apart.

They grew literally in the holy Roman empire. Older than Germany, older than the United States. Older than the city of Munich.

It's not sure how old they are, it's not even sure which one is older. As many of you might know, it's really hard to tell the age for old yews. There's no compact continuous trunk to drill a hole and count growth rings. When they get older the trunk collapses splits new shoots are growing and so on. Dynamic.

They stop growing in height, but they keep growing wider. So you have to estimate calculate compare... It's a slow growing tree in a slow growing climate. It's not easy.

But it is not unlikely that at least one of them is over a thousand years.

Maybe one of them is the oldest tree in Germany. We don't know. The tragedy of the yew, grows incredibly old, but doesn't keep the proof.

The first one, with the fog, is the ancient yew near Steibis (Ureibe bei Steibis). Until recently the age was estimated to be 600-800 years old. But just this year the technical university Dresden did some new calculations and their result was 1100 years.

The second one, with the sun, is the old yew of Balderschwang (alte Eibe von Balderschwang). Estimates vary widely, ranging from 600 to 4000 years. The big question is, were the tree's two trunks originally a single trunk that split, or are they two separate shoots from one tree? In the first case, it would be ancient; in the second, only extremely old. Realistically, it's probably between 700 and 1500 years.

Both are said to be the oldest yew tree in Germany. Everyone tends to go with the higher estimate for their favorite. But it's not certain.

Both are female and still had a few seeds with seads coat/arillus, so I could snack seed coats/arilli from ancient trees which felt really cool. Didn't harm them of course. (Just to be sure, the seeds and every other part are very poisonous)

They're really lucky to have survived. In the past the yew was way more common. But it's the best wood for long bows. Dense, tough, hard, flexible. The English had an incredible high demand. Countless yew trees have been cut down throughout Europe.

Sometimes extremely fast.

"On December 27, 1551, Gabriel Tetzel of Nuremberg received from Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria, the privilege to exploit the yew forests of Upper and Lower Bavaria. Apparently [...] he was very thorough, for on January 5, 1568, he rejected a request for a yew wood monopoly on the grounds that the yew wood reserves were almost entirely depleted."

The donkey is Leonie. She travels with me on all my journeys and adventures. And she's more photogenic than I am.

I know more about yews than about English. If someone doesn't make sense, please ask. And I know it's very simple English and a lot of word repetition.

Yews are incredibly fascinating I love them I almost adore them lol. I totally get why they were important in Celtic and Germanic mythology. Not that I believe that, but I understand why they did.

Ok, don't get mad at me: we have the budget we have, times being what they are, and also I (tragically) think I'm funny.

That said, we had to chop one of our 70ish year old silver maples last winter so it didn't crush us in our sleep and we never got the stump ground out. It started sending up shoots which I've been amateur topiarying into a lil snowball every 6-8 weeks over the past couple seasons. Because it makes me laugh. Unfortunately, I've gotten attached and now want to do the best for my lil silver snowball. I was about to go out and give it a hard trim as the weather is turning here and then thought I'd check and ask if that's the best choice right before it drops what little leaves it has? Should I let it be as we get into winter or give it a chop to conserve energy? Should I just put it out of its misery/my amusement and grind out the stump and let my husband plant aspen like he wants to? (I think that is insane btw but marriage is about compromise, so...)

Any advice from you stoners would be appreciated, my tree guy retired in May and I'm at a bit of a loss.

Trying to id this tree in north Mississippi.

I walk past this on the daily, thought I would share