{"id":1912,"date":"2014-05-05T10:13:25","date_gmt":"2014-05-05T16:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=1912"},"modified":"2014-05-05T10:13:25","modified_gmt":"2014-05-05T16:13:25","slug":"venerable-pioneer-park-tree-taken-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2014\/05\/venerable-pioneer-park-tree-taken-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Venerable Pioneer Park tree taken down"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pioneer<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

A massive, five-trunk willow tree, which grew just south of the main tennis courts at Pioneer Park, was cut down on Arbor Day.<\/p><\/div>\n

One of the most popular trees in Billings \u2014 yes, a popular tree \u2014 is no more.<\/p>\n

The huge, five-trunk willow tree that sat just south of the main tennis courts at Pioneer Park was cut down on Arbor Day.<\/p>\n

Fred Bicha, the city forester, said the willow had become too rotten and dangerous, so he made the decision to take it down.<\/p>\n

A private tree company felled the willow on Arbor Day, April 25, when many local tree services were donating their work to the city. In all, the tree companies performed $35,000 worth of free services in city parks on Arbor Day, Bicha said.<\/p>\n

The willow in question was popular mainly because there was a substantial natural platform three or four feet off the ground where the trunks forked off. Untold thousands of children \u2014 and more than a few adults \u2014 played in and around that tree over the years, and probably many thousands more had their pictures taken while sitting or standing on that natural platform.<\/p>\n

Bicha said the tree, with a diameter of 104 inches, or 8\u00bd feet, had been trimmed numerous times in recent years to remove dead limbs. Using a Resistograph, which bores into a tree about 15 inches and measures the density of the wood, Bicha determined that the willow\u2019s time had come.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just felt it was time for that tree to be removed,\u201d he said. \u201cAfter taking it down and looking at that stump, I feel we made the right decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Several mature trees were toppled when a microburst ripped through Pioneer Park last year, Bicha said, so he had to think about the possibility of losing the willow in a similar event.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt kind of weighed on me a lot,\u201d he said. He also considered removing only the least stable of the trunks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could have left maybe two of them, but it would have looked horrible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Bicha said he didn\u2019t know how old the willow was, but it was probably less than 100. Last October, during a Parade of Trees bike ride, photographs of Pioneer Park in 1912 were being circulated, and the willow was not yet there, he said.<\/p>\n

The good news is that 21 new trees were planted in Pioneer Park on Arbor Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most popular trees in Billings \u2014 yes, a popular tree \u2014 is no more. The huge, five-trunk willow tree that sat just south of the main tennis courts at Pioneer Park was cut down on Arbor Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[599,600,442,601],"class_list":["post-1912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-billings","tag-arbor-day","tag-fred-bicha","tag-pioneer-park","tag-resistograph","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}