I’ve been wondering how old the tree in front of our house is. It is an American Sycamore, which means it will drop seed balls all over the lawn every year. It isn’t huge, but it probably was planted by early owners, if not the original owners of our house, which was built in the 1950s. Although a home inspector told us that the roots were not going to disturb the foundation, I don’t know if he meant not in the near future or not in twenty years. For that reason, I wish the tree was a little further away from the house, but it does offer ample shade. I stumbled across an article in The Washington Post about determining the age of trees. Many trees aren’t as old as people would like to assume. With good conditions trees can grow large in a short amount of time. An increment borer can be used to take a core sample and read the growth rings, but it can harm the tree. We seem to be over-eager to place historical significance in trees when they are not actually as old as we’d like to believe.