John, I would love to see pre and post pictures of your metasequoia. Also I would be tempted to make clocks or table tops out of every trunk slice.

I think sycamores.get a bad rap around here. Interesting.

Severe damage: Bradford pear

==>>. i bet this surprises none of us.. lol ... heck i sneezed once.. and one fell over .. lol ...

By God's grace the orientation of the fall was such that it did't cause any significant damage to my house.

==>> crimminey.. how close to the house was it????? .. and what about the neighbors.. miss them too???? .. i guess i am picturing a 100 foot tree on a relatively small suburban lot.. how big is your lot..

considering i grew up on a street with sycamores.. i am not surprised at overall lack of damage.. but i would be surprised there wasnt a lot of minor branches laying all over the place ...

i swear to God i was at mom's yesterday.. standing near one of the trees i grew up next to.. in a rather minor wind.. and almost got clipped by a 3/4 inch branch that gratuitously tried to kill me .... by falling 60 feet at me ...

well.. anyway.. i digress.. if all you lost was your tree.. i am glad to hear you made it thru the storm of the century otherwise unharmed..

ken

Dead, dried out twigs/limbs on sycamore are easily dropped, but sound wood is very difficult to split....

Sorry about the metasequoia, but some redwood species are able to recover from major injuries quite well.

This is quite interesting, in multiple places I found Norway maples to be listed as *the* most storm resistant broadleaf, in the same league of bald cypress... I really cannot understand these rankings. When they say storm tolerant are they only referring to the probability of being uprooted or are they considering branch loss? Mah...
I'd like to know how acer pseudoplatanus does in high winds as I am hoping to plant in in the north west corner of my property....

I wonder if that Metasequoia could survive that kind of damage. I'd be tempted to wait until Spring to see how it responds.

Here's the URL with a slide show of pictures of the Metasequoia, etc.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sandy in E.Monmouth County

Yeah, I'd wait to see if it survives that damage, I suspect it will. Looks like it still has plenty of loving branches and it will probably try to regrow a new leader from one of them. Now, it won't be as strong as an undamaged tree, of course, but that is the way of things.

Classic example of the dangers of a forked trunk.

Yep, it'll stay alive and grow several new leaders. In 2 or 3 years, climb up there and prune it back to one leader so you don't get a repeat of the same scenario.

There's also a good crop of cones on the fallen tops, worth getting the seed from them and sowing it.

Resin

It is funny how thing happen in a storm like Sandy. We lived in Wilmington when Fran went through. The eye right across our addition. Of the several hundred house in the addition only about 6 received an major damage. I had a 1/3 of an acre and had mostly pines from about 3" in diameter to a 24"long leaf. In Fran I lost over 30 trees including he Long leaf pine on that third of an acre.

With all those trees falling the only damage the house received was two tiny tears in two window screen. All of the other house had similar experiences. After getting all of the trees cut up and piled in the street the width of my lot, this guy stopped and ask if he could take some of it for fire wood. Since I could hardly get out of the drive the answer was obvious

We were Lucky

Even in the category 3 and 4 hurricanes here on the gulf coast, the Sycamores hold up pretty well. They must have a pretty massive root system to keep them anchored. Sweetgums and Southern Magnolias usually come out pretty good too.

Tulip Poplars are damage prone, either by the trunk snapping, or by uprooting. Sweetbay magnolia seems to get bent over pretty badly. Red Maples depend on their growing conditions, if they're tall and skinny they bend over, but if they're open grown with a thicker trunk they perform okay

Oaks vary by species. Water, Laurel, and Willow oaks tend to be weak and shallow rooted, while Live and White oaks are stronger with deeper roots.

I don't have any experience with Metasequoia, but Bald Cypress is said to be one of the most hurricane "resistant" trees out there.

Every forked Eastern Red Cedar I have seen falls/breaks at some point. Its not if, but when. From cutting the stumps down and looking at the rings, the fork leaves a weak spot in the tree. Assume the same thing holds true for other conifers, such as the Metasequoia mentioned. If that tree had been single-trunked, doubt it would have had a problem.

Surprised about the Sycamore. Didn't expect it to be wind-resistant.

I remember when I dug up my first Sycamore. It was by itself in a field with loose coal type rocks, they were small like gravel and the roots were near the surface, about 3 inches down and the guy with me tried to help getting the roots uncovered and pulled up the tree and I cut some roots and he started pulling and the roots, the shallower ones on the uncut side kept coming and coming for about 30 feet out and this was a 2 -3 ft tree. It had some major roots left behind, I thought it would never bounce back, but the next spring and thereafter it is doing fine. It is now the next door neighbors tree, but about 8 ft from my property line. It is about 30 ft or taller, at least a foot wide trunk diameter.

There are about 30 Sycamore trees I observed closely after the storm blew through, About half of them are on our street and the rest line an old driveway nearby. Some are 45 years old and others about 75 years. They suffered virtually no damage other than loss of deadwood. We are about 7 miles from the shore. The eye of the storm made landfall about 75 miles south of us. We were at the forward-right quadrant of the storm - I would say 2 o'clock orientation. Soil here is sandy loam.

John