Death of a Giant: 220-Year-Old Oak Tree Chopped Down

Having endured at least two centuries in Montgomery County soil, the big, but dying oak tree on Frederick Road has been chopped down.

The tree was removed June 4 after arborists from the Department of Natural Resources and the State Highway Administration determined there was nothing more they could do.

“It wasn’t receiving water and nutrients,” said State Highway Administration Spokesman David Buck. “It was basically dead.”

The oak tree was 54-inches thick and was at least 220 years old, according to James Eierdam, a watershed forester with the Maryland Forrest Service. Oak trees generally live to be 200 to 300 years old, according to Eierdam.

The State Highway Administration built around the massive tree when it widened Frederick Road (Route 355) in the early 1990s.

Buck said the state spent $28,000 equipping it with lightening protectors and pruning its roots, watering and monitoring it thereafter.

But last summer state arborists determined that the tree was on the verge of death. All of its leaves were gone. And many of its limbs had hollowed out.  

In April, a state arborist determined that the tree’s dying limbs posed a safety risk. Its fate was sealed.

“There was no way it could be saved,” Buck said.