Well, our front yard is naked, and the tree and five shrubs are dead.
Yesterday, Carl’s Tree Service came and took out the tree and shrubs, chewed them up into mulch (except for one log from the tree, which is now drying out in our fireplace in preparation for burning next winter), ground up the roots, and, as soon as weather permits, will bring in topsoil, and seed it all down.
Yesterday turned out to be a perfect day for a major landscaping revision. There was a tremendous amount of noise, with chain saws, the chipper and the stump grinder being put through their paces, and it made for quite an mid-day event on Raymond Street. All the neighbors came out to see what was going on, making for an almost festive atmosphere.
They arrived shortly after 11:00, lining the street with their heavy equipment, and by 3:00 they were gone, leaving our property transformed. All that’s left is the yew hedge in front of the porch, and a barberry bush off to one side. And we plan to cut off the barberry at ground level the first chance we get so that when it comes back (and it will … barberrys are the Rasputin of shrubs) we can train it into a much smaller bush than it currently is.
Now, we can mow our small lawn unencumbered by obstacles, which translates into less time with the mower and the weedwhacker, and more time with the bike. All in all, not a bad trade-off.
For the rest of this season, we’re going to concentrate on getting the lawn to recover (the tree had done some damage to the grass, and of course, its removal even more), and maybe next year we’ll start to think about what we want to do. We’re not sure at this point whether or not we want another tree, but we probably will get something to replace the rhododendron, although it will be something that won’t grow that big, and it will certainly be something that doesn’t drip sticky nectar from its blossoms all over the place the way the rhododendron did.
We’re even doing the flower beds easier this year, having bought seed tape instead of getting flats of flowers. We experimented with a seed tape last year, and with virtually no work, we had zinnias out the wazoo. And at considerable less expense, to boot. This year, it is the method of choice for the beds.
Today, of course, it’s raining again … we got things done just in time, although this will probably have an impact on their coming back to do the topsoil and the seeding.
But at least the big work is finished. Now, we wish it would just stop raining long enough to put in our garden.
