Anyone taking a chainsaw to some venerable old specimen tree would surely encounter howls of protest. But a dramatic intervention by the "raw forces of nature", as one ESB spokesman put it, is a different matter, and storms have a habit of reducing once-difficult decisions to a fait accompli.
Ten years ago southern Britain was devastated by what became known as the Great Storm. It struck on October 16th, 1987, with Force 11 winds and gusts of more than 90 m.p.h. By the time it died down, great swathes had been cut through ancient woodlands and some 20 million trees were lost.
People wept at the devastation of famous gardens such as Wisley in Kent, long the pride of the Royal Horticultural Society. But some of those in charge saw it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to redesign and replant the garden with a greater variety of trees and plants to see it into the next century and beyond.
Mr John McCullen, superintendent of the Phoenix Park and past president of the Tree Council of Ireland, said England's Great Storm yielded another unexpected bonus, the regeneration of beech woodlands in which such flora as bluebells and primroses were able to grow once again because the tree canopy had been thinned out.
"A lot of the trees felled by the storm would have been old anyway," he said. "People forget that trees go through a natural cycle, growing older and maturing and then going into decay. That's why it's so important that the planting cycle must always continue so that, when you do get damage, there will be sufficient younger trees to take over."
Mr McCullen recalls attending a lecture by Mr Tony Schilling, curator of Westonbirt, another noted English garden, in the aftermath of the Great Storm.
"There was so much gloom and doom around at the time, but he told us that he jumped with joy at the devastation because one stormy night had given him an opportunity to replant it."
In Ireland, Mr McCullen said, we were "resting on our laurels and living off the legacy of all the trees planted by the landlords" in the 18th and 19th centuries. "There's been a gap in tree-planting since the last century, with no really serious broad-leaved planting done at least until recent years when grants became available."
In the Phoenix Park, what is probably Ireland's most extensive arboricultural management programme has been put in place with the aim of replacing its 20,000 mature parkland trees and some 500 acres of woodlands. So far 10,000 new trees have been planted, all mixed deciduous, so as not to rely on too few species.
Mr McCullen pays tribute to Decimus Burton, who laid out the park in the 18th century and whose planting programme is followed to this day. "He got it right, so that by the time we faced the calamity with Dutch elm disease, the small number of elms which had to be felled in the park was hardly missed."
Though arboricultural management is "not 100 per cent scientific", the park's superintendent said it was possible to predict "pretty accurately" what trees were likely to fall in a storm. This failed in the case of Hurricane Charlie in August 1986, when nearly 200 of the park's trees were lost because they were in full leaf. Storms can be devastating for younger trees, too. In Wisley a major planting programme, started before the Great Storm to renovate its once-famous oak wood, was destroyed by older trees or boughs beheading or splitting the younger specimens. Conifers were "snapped like carrots".
The National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin is facing a difficult decision about an impressive but very old purple beech which lost one of its boughs a few days before last week's storm. "A lot of agonising will go into it, but the decision could be made for us", said Mr Paul Maher, one of the senior staff.
The purple beech, located in the pond area close to the Tolka river, is of great sentimental value as it probably dates back to the foundation of the gardens in the 18th century. It has been used as a leafy backdrop for poetry readings and music recitals, but may not survive much longer in its weakened condition.
"A lot of loosening will have happened to the roots and boughs of trees in last week's storm," Mr Maher said. "If we are due more high winds this week, even though they may not be as severe, a lot more damage could be done because what has been teetering on the brink will fall. So we're holding our breath for that."