On Apr 8, 9:01*am, "Danny D." wrote:
My sister recently bought a house in the Silicon Valley that
just happens to have a set of thorny lemon trees near the sidewalk:
*http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/12640784.jpg

This weekend, I knocked off all the thorns that I could:
*http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/12640887.jpg

But, I wonder if we should just transplant the lemon trees to her back
yard and replace with something more amenable to sidewalk traffic.
*http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/12640787.jpg

Two questions:
1. Do you think these lemon trees will survive transplantation?
2. What inexpensive decorative alternative would you replace it with?

It's supposed to be easier to ask forgiveness rather than permission,
EXCEPT with bureaucracies! Those trees could belong to the city she
lives in [although SHE is responsible for them, the city 'owns' them]
I know, made no sense when I lived there.
Therefore she may need a permit from the city arborist to do ANYTHING
with those trees.

When I lived in the Bar Area, i had two old acacia trees, deemed to be
the two most dangerous trees in the city [hollowed and weakened by rot
and roots cut constantly for various construction] These were BIG
trees within 18 feet of the house. Since the trees were in the
parking, I asked the city to replace them. That's when I found out the
city owned them but the legislation had made ME responsible for them.
I couldn't do a thing to them WITHOUT a written permit [the city owned
them] yet I was supposed to be responsible for them. Right after
learning all this and right after the city did a horrible trim job
lopping off one side, a bad storm took one of the trees down. It fell
diagonally just missing, well almost missing our house but flattened
the front of the historical landmark building next door. Took two days
for a full size city crew working constanntly to completely cut up and
remove the LARGE tree's carcass! And this was with it lyiing on the
ground. Since I am responsible for the tree, if it had more severely
damaged our house, I would have had to pay a lot. But because it also
fell adjacent, somehow the culpability went back to the city, not me,
and they had to pay the neighbor to reconstruct his historical
landmark house. Go figure. So there is govt at work again. THEY own
the tree. Home owner is responsible for the tree, but can't trim it,
can't select what type, can't cut it down. Nothing, without a permit
and of course pay for the permit. Yet, and this is luckily, if the
tree damages someone else's property, the city has to pay. Some
lawyer somewhere must be getting rich off this convolution of logic.

The remaing tree? I was told the city would give me a free permit for
me to hire someone to cut down the tree [estimation excess of $3,000.
No thanks. Then along came light rail and THEY cut it down, part of
their budget. Problem solved.