Trees are above reproach and so, so easy to love.Those live-sustaining, sky-embracing, leafy outreaching toothpicks are - along with motherhood - one of the two unassailable things.
"The best time to buy shares in Apple Corp is 20 years ago. The second best time is now,” goes the old saying, which also applies to trees.
And who is crazy enough not to love trees? They offer shade, often bear delicious fruit and give low-mortgage homes to first-time nest-owning songbirds.
Planting a tree offers a feeling of affirmation, goodness and hope.
But you should think twice before doing it.
The minute you lay those roots into that crumbly brown soil, you enter into a world of obligations with civic authorities and potential conflicts with neighbours that can turn expensive and ugly.
Your right to plant that tree is not accompanied by any right to unplant that same tree and therein lies the problem.
Every municipality has its rules on cutting or trimming trees but all of them require you to furnish documentation and pay a fee to get permission to haul out that saw. Westmount, for example, will hit you for $50 to review and then $100 to give permission to cut.
In Montreal city, someone wanting to cut any tree with a 10 cm diameter or more (ie: anything more than a twig) needs to apply for a $50 permission.
Not only do you need a license to remove a tree, you need one in order to trim over half the branches or roots.
Failure to obtain such a license can cost you big time as fines can be $700 per tree and up to $10,000 for a repeat chopper.
Of course trees tend to get bigger and their roots more invasive over time, which can lead to significant damage to your foundation, or your neighbours foundation as well, so bad outcomes are not unlikely.
So the moment you plant that tree you are one step closer to the headaches that come with it.
Indeed people sue each other over various tree-related conflicts all the time and judges routinely award thousands - even tens of thousands - of dollars in payments from one aggrieved party to another. (See some decisions below.)
Many might philosophically assume that the vegetation growing on their property falls under their control, that chopping a tree is no different than cutting their grass, or that a municipality has no more right to prevent them from cutting their tree than a politician has a right to prevent them from getting an abortion. (WTF? - Chimples) but that is not the case.
The carefree, placid and bucolic pleasure of having a tree on your property is an illusion.
Indeed they should come with a sticker warning of the impending headaches that come with the leafy joy.
So while there are a lot of reasons to plant a tree - as urged on Earth Day just five weeks away - you should also consider the many reasons to not plant one.
Some cases: Rose-Alice Lavoie scores $3,000 from the Town of St. Ulric for illegally cutting some of her trees.
Therese Marino of St. Hubert wins $2,800 from her neighbour Gilles Tremblay who damaged the roots of her hedge while putting in a fence.
Company in Senneterre ordered to pay $35,000 for a tree-cutting dispute incident.
Irmi Sabloff and Ben Schecter win $22,000 over a tree-related dispute in Dorval. (2006)
For countless other similar cases, do a search for arbre or tree here.