A Complaint of Trees
In Hawkins by the Highway, the Live Oaks are withering.
Trees are dying by the dozens.
There is a preserve with wonderful walking paths -- really, the walking areas are grand.
The problem is that the preserve is encircled by homes on elevated lots and raised, paved, walking paths. It has created an unnatural bowl where water levels are high.
The gums, the pines, and the oaks are swamped and dying. Live Oaks are named as such because they keep their leaves. Some around Hawkins are bare -- the ones further away, up in elevation are fine, for now.
Two weeks ago, a blow started and a tree in the preserve fell across a fence and landed on a house. Next door, another tree fell over the iron-like fence and fell across another homeowner's lot.
Two days later, a Monday, a convoy of tree workers came in with heavy equipment and topped all the dead trees. On this side of the preserve, these trees are younger, smaller, but they too, died. They lived for years and years before the development. Like the centennial-aged live oaks, they couldn't take the wet soil from the unnatural landscaping.
What is most distressing is the old oaks that probably were alive during the first European treks through Central Florida; they, too, are dying due to root rot. Not a couple, many -- I counted around a dozen on the side facing Meggison.
Please walk the beautiful trail in Hawkins and see I exaggerate not.
I wish The Villages were concerned about this.
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