Tree Removal in Bellingham

Bellingham's older neighbourhoods grew up around their trees, and the trees kept growing. In Edgemoor, South Hill, Sehome and Columbia, mature Douglas fir, western red cedar and big-leaf maple stand a few yards from the house, often taller than anything else on the street. The lots are narrow, the streets are tight, and on South Hill and around Sehome Hill the ground drops away fast. There is rarely anywhere to lay a tall tree down.

That pattern continues out from the older core. Fairhaven and the Chuckanut side mix steep, rocky slopes with big conifers and the occasional madrona. Around Silver Beach and the Lake Whatcom shoreline, the lots run downhill toward the water. In Barkley and Cordata the houses are newer, but many were built inside stands of second-growth fir and alder that have grown a long way since the lots were cleared.

Then there is the weather. Bellingham gets its wind from two directions: southerly storms coming in off the water, and the cold northeast outflow that pushes down from the Fraser Valley in winter. After weeks of rain, a fir on shallow or poorly drained ground, where its roots spread flat instead of deep, can have its whole root plate lifted by a strong gust. A lot of storm damage in the city is not a snapped trunk. It is a whole tree that tipped over, roots and all.