Tree Removal

My back yard is semi-wild.  I like it that way.  I hate removing trees, though I have removed a lot of them over the years.  When I moved here 29 years ago, the backyard was mostly filled with too many junk trees, too closely spaced for their own health.  I thinned out the smaller junkiest ones (especially a type of locust tree with thorns like needles all around the trunk).

At the same time, I looked at the drainage easement along the property line.  For those of you not familiar with a "drainage easement", it is an artificial rainfall control channel that leads to a natural body of water (in my case a swamp across the street).  But the drainage easement wasn't the natural drainage.  There is a 3' deep ravine that cuts across the neighbor's back yard and used to cut across the side of my front yard.  The county-mandated artificial drainage easement that goes between our property lines cut my part off.

So I first just wanted to fill in my ravine, and I did so with a full dump trick load of average fill soil.  I spread it all out myself.  It was some bit of work, all with rake and shovel.  But there were 2 fully mature oak trees right next to the new drainage easement, and I realized that the roots had been entirely sheared away on one side.  I had them removed so they wouldn't fall over on the house.  I left the 3rd oak tree standing because it was farther from the drainage easement and I wanted the shade on the roof (passive cooling was a big idea at the time). 

Then I thinned out some that were just too shaded by larger trees to ever thrive.  That still left a complete deep shade canopy across most of the back yard.

But even the larger trees were still "youngish", and didn't stop growing.  10 years later, I had about half of them professionally removed.  Later, one of the larger trees leaned over enough to fall in a windstorm and the top half of another snapped off and a 3rd one was starting to lean, so they had to go.

But lately, I've become obsessed with the idea that the remaining massive oak will fall on the house.  The past 5 years, it has been dropping 6" diameter branches and I doubt its health. It's only 20' from the house, and the prevailing winds would push it in that direction.  Given the estimated weight of the tree is at least 3,000 lbs (6,600 kilos), it would pretty much crush the entire house (and likely myself as well).  I can imagine the newspaper headlines.  "Local man has tree fall on house, drowns in his own waterbed"...

I'm having it removed tomorrow along with a large sweetgum tree that has been leaning over slightly.  I talked to my home insurance agent about it.  He admitted that should the tree fall onto the house, I was 100% replacement-covered, but it could take months of reconstruction and I would probably need to move out during the reconstruction.

It seemed like a great property when I chose it 29 years ago.  But having lots of mature trees near your house is over-rated.

It will be an adventure watching this oak removed.  I wasn't at home to see it's 2 siblings removed ( I was supposed to, but they arrived a day early and when I got home from work that day, they were just GONE!  The other trees I've had removed have been nowhere near as large as this one.

The tree guy says that the upper branches will be removed first by a combination of a crane and tree-climbers, and lowered by rope for eliminating collateral damage to other trees (and the house and deck).  The massive trunk itself will be cut off (lowered) 8-10' at a time and will be carried off by some sort of "grabber" to a flatbed truck.  I hope that's not "hype".  I will be taking pictures all the way and will post them.

The good news is that they will be taking down the sweetgum tree first.  It's small than the oak, and I will see how carefully they do that job.  If they seem careless or find that tree difficult, I can tell them to stop before they start on the much larger oak tree.  They have a "A" rating on Angie's List, but not a LOT of reviews.  It's possible they got their "A" rating from smaller simpler jobs.  I'm being careful.

There is some deconstruction work involved at getting at the massive oak tree, too.  At the least, 2 sections of my 6' shadowbox wood fence have to be removed (the tree is just inside my fence), and it is possible a gate and a concrete-set fence post will have to be removed (they suspect not, but if so, their "grabber" can just pull the 6"x6" fence post right up out of the ground without even damaging it and it can be set back down into the hole afterwards as sturdy as before.

I actually believe that last part.  I've set enough posts into the ground without concrete myself to know how well clay soil hardens around any bare post in plain clay.  One with an 12" cylinder of concrete around it should settle in better.  And it might be an improvement.  That post leaned slightly after being installed 25 years ago and the connections to the fence sections are loose anyway.

For generally useful information for anyone considering this kind of work themselves, the quote is $5,500.  As I understand it in very general terms, $500 is just for bringing all their equipment (a crane, a "grabber", and 2 flatbed trucks) and crew from 15 miles away to the worksite, $4000 is for the massive oak tree, and $1000 is for the sweetgum tree.  The cost includes detailed cleaning of all debris, removal and replacement of fence, and grinding both stumps 2' below ground level.  It seems worth it...

So anyway, tomorrow is going to be VERY interesting.

I will be watching them through the entire process of course.  Partly for knowing what happened if there is some accident, partly just out of fascination for a process I can hardly imagine, and partly because it is a rare opportunity to take some really interesting pictures (for my scrapbook and for blogging - one never wants to miss a chance at great pictures to blog about, LOL!).

But one can't spend the entire day taking pictures and hoping no one falls out of the trees.  So I have saved some yardwork for myself to do while the tree guys are doing their thing.  It is all stuff I can do while keeping an eye of the tree-work while being safely out of the way.  I have the garden to water, some trellises and screen door supports to install in the garden enclosure, and if that takes less time than I expect, part of the far backyard is getting overgrown with blackberries, thistles, and  and I have a gas-powered weed-whacker with a steel blade I need to start using.

And after that is done, I have excavation work to be done in the backyard!  The ridge in the middle of the backyard is going away and the sunken area of the front yard (that gets flooded every thunderstorm) will be raised 18"!  That's to be scheduled after the trees are gone.

The Decorations Up Close

 It's not your usual tree...

Well, lets see the close-ups of the ones I used this year...  The cardinals always have to be there.  I love Cardinals. 

A general view of one side of the tree.

The bird nests are favorites.  And yes, those are real bird nests.  The eggs are painted wood.  

I love my apples.  They are at least 40 years old. 

I didn't even remember these.   Glass pine cones all covered in glitter!

A view of another side of the tree.

A glass hummingbird.  I have 6 of pairs of colors.  I LOVE those.

And of course, what is a tree without a cat?  This is an old decoration from Mom.  I think there used to be buttons for eyes that got replaced when she (Mom) was young, by ink.  I hope to pass this one (and others) along some day.

The Tree

Start To Finish...  And a long one; as someone said, "grab a beverage", LOL...

I was initially discouraged by all the branch and stem and twig adjustments needed.  It sat there with just the base opened for a week (I seem to have lost THAT picture sadly).  I dithered about returning it and buying a real tree, the amount of work to adjust all the ends was daunting, but adding all the lights to a real tree is no great fun either.

It seemed so balanced either way... 

But my earliest jobs required a lot of repetitive work, and I WAS good at that, so I considered managing all those bendy branches from a repetition work point of view.  They were assembled in a way, they must open in a way.  I found a pattern.  The internal branches go "left, right, up, down" just to fill in the background.  Its not like you are going to hang ornaments next to the trunk of the tree.

So I just started spreading the tightly packed stems and twigs.  The instructions said "10 minutes and you have a lovely tree".  HAH, HAH, HAH!  But 3 hours and I did!   just had to actually stnd there and DO IT.  The biggest annoyance and time-waster, was that the outer "new-season" twigs were flat on one side and full on the other, and they were almost always upside down.  Easier for the poor people constructing the trees I assume, but poor quality-control at the end of the production line.  I'll bet I had to turn over 1,000 stem-ends.  But only once.  Next year, I won't have to.

It helped to wear thin "driving gloves".  Those plastic needles can wear on you after a while.

So it was a good-looking tree after all the set-up.  It looks better than I expected, actually.

Then I turned on the built-in LED lights...  WOW!

With camera flash...

With slow-synchro camera flash...

With camera flash OFF.  The lights really shine that way.  And it looks the same with the room lights off.

And decorated!!!   With flash on...

And off...

Hmmm. ..  Didn't notice that one cardinal was fallen over...  Well, everything can't stay perfect.

I love real trees for the smell and reality.  And you don't have to arrange the branches.  And I'm not sure tree farms harm the environment.  They produce oxygen.  And I know one cat who survived under them until finding a Forever Home...

But fake trees have advantages too.  One lasts for a decade or so, they have 1,000s of built-in LED lights, they don't require watering so they are safer.  And in theory, they can fold up "OK" with the branches spread (but folded up, if that makes sense).  Well, let's just say it wouldn't fit back in the box, but it will take up less space than as currently spread out.  All the branches are on hinges.

I always hate to say this, given my general sarcasm to "Martha Stewartism" but this IS a Martha Stewart Tree...  (According to the box and I didn't know that at the time).  All I knew at the time was that it was a pretty realistic-looking fake tree...

But what finally decided me on keeping the one I bought was that the branches are sturdier than real trees and I have a lot of rather heavy ornaments.  Ornaments that I could not keep hung on real trees stay on this one.

But I have a lot of very light ornaments too.  So I think I will alternate between live trees and this one.  Best balance I can make.

Tomorrow, close ups of the decorations...  I forgot to use the macro setting and they were all blurry up close.  So I need to take new pictures.

But the close-ups are great, so tune in tomorow.

Holiday Tree

I should have known not to buy an artificial Holiday Tree!  I don't like artificial things all that much.  And I didn't even go shopping to get one.  I was at a DIY store to buy furnace filters weeks ago, and there were all these nice-looking artificial trees so nicely decorated.  Two thoughts came to mind.

First, I recalled memories of younger days with the family decorating the tree, and I thought a nice artificial one would be "satisfactory", convenient, and cost-effective over the years.

Secondly, I had had to empty the attic a few months ago to have the attic sealed and additional insulation sprayed in, so I had all these boxes of Holiday decorations stacked up in the cat room.  The decorations were on my list of things to keep or donate.

So I was looking at the trees in the store and thinking of the all the decorations I'd collected over the years and ON IMPULSE I bought an artificial tree.  Impulse purchases are not my habit, but by definition "impulse" is not planned.

I opened the box today, and it was NOT what I expected.  I EXPECTED a box of a dozen or so stacking rings of perfectly formed branches that would be ready to go with a simple plug-in (and me adding special ornaments and my bubble-lights.  Foolish me!

Instead, there are only 3 sections (of branches that DO hinge down, to be fair).  But each branch is as tightly squeezed into a tube-like shape as wrapping paper.  Each individual stem and twig has to be bent out into a realistic shape.  A quick estimate suggested there would be 100 branches of about 20 stems per branch and 20 twigs per branch (= 40,000 if you really do it right).

A sample branch of the middle section took 2 minutes to make look realistic.  So, 2 minutes times 100 branches = 200 minutes (or 3 hours and 20 minutes).  And adding in some time for discomfort caused by handling the prickly plastic needles, hand-cramps from all that bending of stems and twigs, and back-cramps from being bent over and around reaching them, I decided that was more than I wanted to do in order to have a Holiday Tree!

I re-evaluated my concerns over killing live trees.  I guess if I am perfectly willing to have chickens and turkeys raised just for the purpose of being killed for my eating pleasure, I can stand having a real tree grown and cut down for my decorating pleasure.  At least trees just use sunlight and produce oxygen.

Hey, I can rationalize my decisions with the best of them, LOL!

That's IF I get a real cut tree...  I probably will, but it's not definite tonight.  I haven't bought one for a decade, so there may be sticker-shock involved.  I have to think about this.

Its not like there are children or visitors who would see my tree.  But it HAS been years since I decorated and I DO have all the boxes of decorations out of the attic already.  And none of the cats has ever experienced a real tree in the house and that might be interesting.  Skeeter and LC (and the cats who came before) always seemed to enjoy them.

I could justify buying a real tree just for the cats, I suppose...  Hmm, yeah, that could work.  A tree just for the cats.  And they wouldn't mind if I decorated it with cheap plastic ornaments at the bottom where they could reach to whap them.  They'd LIKE that...  I'll put the "good" stuff higher up.

And the birds would like it too.  I used to dig a hole in the backyard to set the tree in after I was done with it inside.  The tree leaves a bare spot under it even when it snows and the birds LOVE picking at the seeds I toss under it.  I had almost forgotten about that.

So, well of course, I'm not buying a live dead tree for ME, I'm doing it for the cats and then the birds.  What could POSSIBLY be more noble?

Oh my goodness!  I better go shopping for a real tree ASAP.  The cats are waiting, and the birds will be happier into the New Year, and the New Year is something to celebrate too...

Mark

Happy Gardening News!

The tomato seeds are up, the broccoli and cabbage seeds are up.

And I've been OUT in the flowerbeds doing some work!

Those black-eyed susans that I planted near the lower deck have been stubbornly migrating toward more sunlight for years.  So I decided to help them!  Today I dug up a patch of ground in the brightest area and dug out the roots of the maple tree the neighbors wont kill.  I turned the soil nicely and  moved 18 of them there.  (The Black eyed Susans)  I knoew the are suited for the spot because they have been TRYING to get there for years.

It was good hard work.  Up, down, up, down, dig, walk, plant, up down etc etc, etc,  I'll sure feel it tomorrow!  But it was great to DO that. The gardening season has begun outside!

The cats loved being outside with me too.  Marley and Iza ran all over the place and caught 2 mice.  Well, Ayla stayed inside.  Marley and Iza chase her when she is out.  I'm glad for the 2 outside, but I miss all 3 outside.

This is going to be a major redesign of the flowerbeds this year.  I've had too many spots of "6 of this, 6 of that".  I am dividing existing plants to make areas 10x10' of the same ones to get a larger view of the plants in flowers.  AND to leave large areas for annuals that I am growing under lights in the basement.

I used to grow 12 ech salvias, forgetmenots, carnations etc, but this year I have 36 each of many annuals.  And 60 marigolds.  Its hard to go wrong having a LOT of marigolds around here. They bloom fast and dont stop.

But this is going to be a year of dividing and moving around the successful perennials.  My favorite online nursery changed from cheap 6 packs to large individual pots last year tripling the price per plant and I told them I would use what I had instead of paying 3X the price.  So  I am.

I will be dividing the appropriate perennials I have in halves in the next few days and making larger areas of the same kinds.  They may not all bloom THIS year, but they sure will NEXT year!  And I was going in that direction anyway.  I'm liking the idea of larger areas of plants blooming rather than a cottage-garden style of small groups.

The plant-cuttings I rooted last Fall of butterfly bushes are growing well.  They will partly replace the aging existing ones, but I have may more than the replacements, so I think there will be a whole row of new ones in the sunnier front yard area.  Its hard to imagine anything better than plants that bloom from June to frost and attract butterflied and hummers.

I have 2 plants that are invasive,  Monarda and Lysimachia Firecracker.  They are going to be moved to the ridge in the middle of the back yard.  I can mow all around it, so they will never escape.  And they can fight it out to see which ones survive in the limited area (about 60' by 20").  I like the foliage and flowers of both, just not their invasive ways.

With the more open areas after the trees were cut back in January, there will be a lot more sunlight.  Good for the flowers and veggie gardens.  I won't miss the tall junk trees and I'll be planting smaller specimen trees in their place (that won't shade the gardens).  I'm thinking dogwoods, sourwoods, hollies, and star magnolias.  There is NO way they will ever shade the flowerbeds and veggie beds like the sweet gums and tulip poplars did.

And there STILL are majestic mature oaks, sweet gums, and tulip poplars here.  Its not like I cleared the yard.  I just cleared a Summer sunlight path VERY carefully.  I've lived here 27 years; I KNOW which of the trees were shading the garden.  They are gone, all the others remain.

Tree Removal

Well, the tree removal crew finally arrived this morning.  Considering that the first scheduled day was about 50 degrees and the second scheduled day was 45, I think they regretted their delays.  When they arrived, it was only 18 degrees and never got above 24!  And some wind whipped up after a couple of hours. 

It got off to a bad start!  The plan was for them to drive the grinder machine into the back yard (which I have done with my car several times) to leave me the chips/sawdust in large piles in the corner of the yard and the the center near the pond.  The first would decompose to compost after a couple of years and the second I would spread around about 4" deep to suppress grass.  But the estimator failed to consider that their truck was 2 feet wider than my SUV! 

So they went to back it onto the front lawn as far as possible.  Damn that grinder machine is heavy!  The wheels sank up to the rim and they had to pull it back to the street.  The lawn is easily repairable, but the crew was sad.  Instead of having to haul the pieces of 8 trees about 30 yards, they had to haul them 60 yards!  It also meant I wouldn't have the chips, but the price was the same either way.

But they got going with the job and everything went fine after that.

I didn't take pictures of the trees falling (they don't come out well).  But I did take some of the stump grinder they brought in for the fallen tree's stump.  It doesn't LOOK all that impressive.

The stump DID look impressive, front

And back.

But the grinder did the job.  That wheel has teeth around it and edges on both sides.  It swings back and forth and just pulverizes the wood and dirt a few inches at a time.

After they smoothed the pile it left, it looked like this.  Like it was never there...

I had them leave the other stumps because the surrounding areas were covered with emerging daffodils and they would have been decimated.  The stumps will rot (and they don't bother me).

I sure hope the additional sunlight will be worth it!

Storms, 2

Oh well, I meant to add pictures to the post yesterday.  But I got up late and the pre-saved post was alreaddy there.  Then I needed to make lunch for Dad and me, feed the cats, get the mail, etc...

So here are the pictures...

I had almost no damage.  This fallen branch was annoying because I had to cut it to pieces to move it off my hosta bed.

But it sure wasn't serious.  I'm just glad that huge tree on the west of the house stayed tall again.  I probably will for another 50 years.  But it may fall next time.  You never know...

The branch was only twice the width of my shoe.

Ans it only fell 20'.  Here's where it broke off.  Its a weird black maple tree.  It grows from my neighbor's yard, but almost entirely over my yard.  The previous neighbors refused to pay to have it cut down (or even trimmed).  The new neighbors are well, "new" and I don't know them yet.

But THAT tree isn't threatening anything, so I will just let it be for now.

This picture is sort of a joke. I deliberately put the thermometer in the full afternoon sun.  I suppose the temperature is accurate for full afternoon sun.  On the other hand, I WAS out there in the full sun, and so were the plants.  I was watering the plants after cutting the fallen tree branch to manageable pieces.  I drank a quart of Gatorade while outside.  And plain water when I went inside!

My favorite HOT joke:  "It was SO hot, I saw a starving coyote chasing a terrified rabbit, and they were both walking"...

But seriously, we don't have month-long droughts here in JUNE.  July and August are the dry months here.  The unshaded lawn grass is already dormant and crunchy.  What are July and August going to be like?  I do not routinely water the lawn.  The grasses here go dormant in late Summer and the Fall rains bring them back to green until the next July.  But I may have to water the lawn this year.  Even the weeds in the lawn are dying, and I don't think the turf grass is as hardy as the weeds.

I've never seen it like this in early July.

STORMS!

Well, we have had some surprising stormy conditions here lately!  The first was Friday night.  For one thing, I didn't know it was coming.  We don't watch much live TV here (well, Fox and Golf channels, but they aren't big on local weather).  It was eerie.  Around 11 pm, Dad commented on how dead still it was outside.  And just then, "the train came through the station".

The wind suddenly whipped up to near hurricane level, the rain started, and the lights began flickering.  I'm not too worried about the lights because we have underground cables here; a power outage is rare and usually lasts only a few seconds to a few minutes.  Its been years since it was a whole hour.  I LOVE our underground cables!

But the rain started driving against the front windows higher up and harder than I can recall seeing even in the few hurricanes we get in MD.  Naturally, I had just noticed this past week that my back rain gutter was coming loose at one end.  These things never happen at the beginning of a drought, of course.  I'll have to arrange for a repair soon, but I'm sure gutter repair companies will be busy for the next month with damages from fallen tree branches.

The rain only lasted a short while, but we got 1/2" of rainfall.  I'm glad of that!  I would have liked more.  I've been watering selected parts of the gardens, but nothing beats rain falling everywhere.  Some long-established shrubs were wilting and the 1/2" of rain perked them right up.

There wasn't too much tree damage in the neighborhood.  After lesser winds, I've awakened to the sounds of chainsaws.  But I went out and found a dozen broken branches in the yard.  I collected them to bring then up front to pile in the utility trailer, when I realized I had walked RIGHT PAST a major tree branch fallen on the hosta bed, LOL!  I haven't moved it yet, its way too big for me to lift.  I'll have to haul out the chainsaw.

I have to laugh, of the entire neighborhood, I may be the only person having to use a chainsaw this weekend! 

It could always be worse.  One nice thing about my property is the huge mature oaks and sweetgums.  One bad thing is the huge mature oaks and sweetgums!  There is one old oak directly west of the house (from where the strongest winds come).  Every severe wind, I wait to hear it crack and fall onto the house.  I regret that I will have to have it cut down some day before it crashes onto the house.  I wonder if my insurance company will partially pay for preemptive tree-cutting?