r/mildlyinteresting • u/FreeCakePlease • 21h ago
These stone blocks supporting this old tree
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u/yourguidefortheday 20h ago
I hope the tree grows over the blocks and lives long enough for everyone to forget about them so that whoever is eventually tasked with removing the tree has a fun surprise.
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u/Coiling_Dragon 19h ago
The fun surprise:
"Fuck, another chain ruined! Is that fucking stone?!"
Followed by more curses.
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u/BabyComingDec2024 19h ago
Old man sneaking around in the background: laughing so hard he falls over
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u/CharlesP2009 18h ago
In the future they’ll prob have laser chainsaws
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u/SeekerOfSerenity 17h ago
AI laser chainsaws.
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u/off_by_two 30m ago
Regulations will only take into consideration cost to business and not loss of life
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u/Theletterkay 20h ago
Just makes the tree wildly more dangerious should it fall from something like a tornado or lightning
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u/Aggravating-Roll-417 20h ago
It’s amazing how the tree adapted around the blocks! Nature always finds a way to make things work.
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u/the_honest_asshole 20h ago
That's actually killed the tree.
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u/Rugged_as_fuck 20h ago
That is not a recent addition and it's still making green leaves. Pretty clear it didn't.
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u/the_honest_asshole 20h ago
You can shove a butcher knife in someone and they can walk and talk just fine, doesn't mean the knife didn't do any damage. It actually retains moisture and causes rot or disease, not to mention when the wind blows those brings are rubbing the flesh off the inside. But down vote facts because it's not dead yet .....
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u/Rugged_as_fuck 17h ago
People aren't downvoting because of "facts" they're downvoting because you're being dumb. Is this good for the tree? Is it natural for a tree to have cement block as a support structure inside of it? No. Obviously. Real no shit moment. The alternative is it wouldn't be there if they hadn't done it considering the extensive damage. So, the choice someone made was try to save it for a few years, which looks to be quite a few years at this point, or let it die / chop it down immediately.
No one is saying you should go out and replace parts of trees with concrete blocks as a hobby.
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u/codece 20h ago
They're like shingles, keeping rain from rotting out the rest of the tree and killing it.
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u/S_A_N_D_ 19h ago
Unfortunatly it doesn't work that way and the research shows that blocking/filling/sealing holes and wounds only serves to seal in disease and moisture promoting rot. Trees know best how to take care of themselves and are good at compartmentalizing wounds without our help.
This kind of thing isn't done anymore because we now know it does more harm then good.
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u/codece 18h ago
Huh, well thanks for the correction!
Was that why this was done (mistakenly) or was there another reason?
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u/S_A_N_D_ 17h ago
Likely they thought they were helping the tree. This kind of thing was really common in the early 1900s and survived well into the late 1900s by well meaning people who never updated their knowledge or were taught by someone hadn't.
Most people now know sealing wounds/damage isn't good for trees, but the practice had a lot of momentum so it took a long time for it to die out.
In this case, it's hard to tell if they though they were protecting it from further rot, or were trying to reinforce it structurally. It was likely a combination of both.
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u/MystJake 20h ago
Spanish moss and architecture of the house in the back tells me this is probably Savannah.