Adventures in Tree Trimming

This was the scene yesterday afternoon as the tree trimmers were tidying up. I don't have a good "before" shot from this angle to show you, but we're now seeing a lot more sky in the center of the garden. The branches of the walnut tree (in the left foreground) and the hazel (on the right) used to meet in the middle. The squirrels loved it -- it was their highway -- but the roses and other plants down below needed more light.

So we've disrupted the Squirrel Autobahn. But believe me when I say it looks much better out there. Unless you're a squirrel.

This was the walnut tree before the trimming began. You can barely see the tassels of the hazel to the right, and how the branches meet.

And this is it afterwards. The tree trimmers took some height off the top as well as removing branches that stretched out over the roses. In addition to getting more light to the garden, we wanted to keep the tree balanced. You can only barely tell from this angle, but the tree leans quite a bit toward the house, and I wanted to lighten the crown for safety's sake.

They also trimmed some of the growth that extended over the fence onto Mrs. Kravitz's property. I thought she'd appreciate that. She's always urging us to cut this tree down, which I would never do. (She hates the falling nuts and leaves.)

The whole process was pretty painless, though I was nervous as a cat. And these aren't even really my trees! Olga and I stayed out of the trimmers' way, and I peeked out every once in a while to see how they were getting on. Afterwards, as I praised their work, I noticed that the walnut was dripping. I thought it was melting ice from our frosty morning, but no -- it was sap.

"It's bleeding," one of them said matter-of-factly. Which didn't make me feel any better. He assured me it would stop in a day or two.

The snowdrops survived unscathed, as well as almost all the other bulbs and plants. Some of the roses got broken by falling branches but we'll cut them back in a month or so anyway, so it doesn't matter. One broom plant got broken off, but that's no big deal.

The tree crew also trimmed the mock orange (Philadelphus), which you can see pre-haircut behind them in the photo above, as well as the monster over the patio. That's been cut back all the way to the fence and it looks like a dissected lung, with airways and blood vessels exposed. It grows quickly and will look green in no time come spring.

I'm glad to have the work done. Now I'm wondering if we shouldn't have had them tackle the "wildlife area" at the very back of the garden, where there are two old elder trees burdened with ivy. Some day those are going to collapse and I don't want to be here when they do. But I feel like that's a landlord job, and besides, I really DO like leaving that area for the birds and squirrels.

I left the trimmers after the bulk of the work was done, and hustled to work for the last two hours of my shift. (That enabled my co-workers to go home at their usual time rather than staying late to close, which is usually my task.) Then I came home, locked up the garden gate and that was that.

Now, when the weather gets warmer, Olga should have many more opportunities for sunbathing!