It's inevitable. Every now and then trees will topple because of snow or ice storms, lightning strikes or just plain old age. John Greenlee, of Greenlee Nursery in Pomona, California, has taken a unique approach to the dilemma of what to do with fallen trees. When an old walnut tree split in half on his property, he stepped back and thought, "Hmmmm, that looks pretty good!" With a few tips, you can do the same.
Typically our first inclination when a tree falls in the yard is to get rid of it--get it out of there! The tree might be in the way, be a safety hazard or just look wrong. But sometimes trees fall in interesting ways that might actually complement your landscape, and in those cases, with a few precautions, you can consider leaving a tree where it fell.
The important thing is to stabilize the fallen tree in some way so that it doesn't cause further damage or problems.
Remember that old dead trees serve an ecological function in the garden. They make great hiding places for skinks and salamanders and other plants and animals that need rotting wood to grow. And you can always use the fallen tree as a sort of horizontal trellis on which to train vines.
So the next time something falls down in the garden, says John Greenlee, think about doing something different with it: leave it and turn it into a garden element.
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