I’ve got this cool trio at the back of my yard. I’ve never seen anything quite like them before. I know that one is a pine but I’m curious if anyone could tell me what the other two are.

These wind-flagged Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) are in little gullies draining to the beach about 8-9 meters below these bluffs. To the east of the Pacific shore, the Santa Cruz Mountains rise and it is possible this is where the seeds of these trees originated.

In the last image, it is easy to see the gully cutting down, and down through a geological feature known as marine terrace, which indicates the old sea level and remnants of a broad, shallow seafloor ~80-100,000 years ago. The first hill rising towards the mountains in the middle distance is another, older marine terrace, perhaps ~250,000 years old. The charred trunks at the foot of this terrace were killed by the 2020 CZU complex fire, the effects can be seen as you zoom in uphill. As we get closer to the mountains, another marine terrace exists (but is not visible here), and is about 300,000 years old, indicating sea level at that time. On the sides of the Santa Cruz Mountains you can see hundreds of standing dead Douglas-fir, killed by the CZU Complex fire.

I have another series of images (Edit: here) where we've been tracking the fire recovery in the redwood forest on the other side of the ridge to the south.

My in-laws’ tree. Husband has tried explaining that they need to get rid of the mulch volcano, but they don’t believe him. Their reasoning:
“Our landscaper did it, and he knows what he’s doing.”
“All the other trees in the neighborhood have that much mulch, and they can’t all be wrong!”

Meanwhile, their next door neighbor’s tree is rotting from the bottom up due to the mulch monstrosity.

We have several places we visit every year to look at postfire recovery from the CZU/LNU Complex fires, including this place in the CZU Complex Fire area in the Santa Cruz mountains, in old-growth and cutover redwood-Douglas fir forest, with the typical tanoak-bay-bigleaf maple-coast live oak friends scattered throughout.

This is the second really strong year for Ceanothus growth, and many sprouts from the stump sprouting tanoak and bay are as much as a meter taller than I am now. You can also see the sprouts from the latent buds on redwood, some of which seem to have sat dormant for a couple years while others started the next year after the fire.

We're taught that fire burns in a mosaic, but increasingly as forests dry out due to climate change, fire is burning hotter and a more catastrophic burn may occur in a place. In my post of the flagged Doug-firs you can see much more mortality on the slopes, but here in this place there is much less 'destruction'.

super cool find for me but not so cool for the plant. what a tragic life :’(

A clump of giant sequoias, probably 175ft tall. I’ve known they would come down eventually due to the nearby house that it’s currently taking over, but it’s a sad day.

Not sure if these all line up, but thought y'all might appreciate.

Hello all! Looking for some advice on what to do for this tree in my front yard.

Pretty sure it is a Silver Birch (but likely you all may know better than I), but this tree has had a crack starting near the base and spiraling its way up the trunk. Though the tree seems "healthy" to my unexpert eyes (gets lots of leaves and seeds every year) the depth and extent on the crack worries me and the tree leans toward the driveway.

Would it be best to cut it down now before it gets worse? Is there any way to salvage a tree with such a cracked trunk?

Thank you!

New growth on rhododendron looks a little off...

So, this is my mother's money tree. She is worried about it. Most of the stalks around the main stem seem dead. She thinks the pot is too small. She lives on Cape Cod in Massachusetts if that matters for climate. What should we do?

We recently purchased a home that has this huge apple tree in the back yard. The previous owners didn’t do any maintenance on the tree and it’s having a really hard time. All the lower branches have no leaves and it dropped all the apples long before they were ripe. Several branches appear to just be dead.

I can’t afford to have a professional come out and trim it, so I was hoping for some advice on how to care for and trim this tree. Any help you can give is greatly appreciated!

I planted a buckeye maybe 12 years ago and on Friday there were many dozens of buckeyes on the tree.

I went out today and there are just empty husks on the ground. The yard is littered with walnuts from 6 large walnut trees, the weirdos seem to prefer the buckeyes.

Bought this house 5 years ago and very grateful to the previous owners for planting this mountain ash. Its center from the pool and back patio so its always right in your face. So beautiful

This was supposed to grow taller, it has decided to get very wide this year instead. How and when should I trim this?