Tennessee Valley trees, Tennessee Valley weather
Limestone County grows trees the way it once grew cotton — everywhere, and fast. Water oaks and willow oaks shade the old streets around the courthouse square in Athens, post oaks and hickories hold the fence lines out toward Elkmont and Good Springs, cedars volunteer on every limestone outcrop the county is named for, and loblolly pines fill in whatever ground nobody is mowing. Add the pecans standing at a century's worth of farmsteads and the maples and Bradford pears planted by the thousand across the new subdivisions east of town, and nearly every property here has something growing that will eventually need attention.
The weather is the other half of the story. This stretch of the Valley sits squarely in Alabama's severe-weather country — the same southern Limestone corridor was hit hard in both the April 1974 and April 27, 2011 outbreaks, and every spring brings a run of squall lines that find the weak wood first. Shallow roots over limestone shelf, red clay that lets go when it's saturated, a summer of heat stress behind them — the trees that come down in the next storm are usually the ones a neighbor was already side-eyeing. Handling them on a calm day is cheaper, safer, and a good deal less dramatic.
