A Major Change To Our Garden

This month we have needed to do a fair amount of changes with some of our trees.

This willow needed pollarding to try and keep it healthy and not losing major limbs. We need to do it fairly regularly - about every 5-7 years. It was bought for 1/6d in the W.I. in 1953 and we love the tree and so do the birds. The downside is the amount of leaves we have to clear up each year and the enormous amount of time it takes.






Behind the willow and just to the right of it is a tall conifer - can just see it through the willow.

It was dying and we had to get rid of it and some others


This plum tree was diseased and we have tried to keep it by pruning out the worst of it but it only prolonged the problem


This tree has been there 70 years but was the favourite of Sarafi the cat and when he died the other month the tree started dying


This conifer died last year and we thought we could handle the removal of it ourselves but didn't quite manage it. We weren't able to dig it out!




All those were dealt with this month and these trees shall be going in February. There's nothing wrong with them apart from them lifting our kerbing and the tarmac driveway!

 

It took three men a full day to pollard the willow and we always have it taken back to the same spot each time. You can see where it was cut previously.









The nest was checked the week beforehand to see that it wasn't occupied














You can now see the dying conifer behind it

 

They came in at 7 a.m. the next morning and started with removing the big conifer and then did the others





Sun was rising


Logs were left around the garden for removing with the second day's trees as their lorry was full with all the woodchip from the willow





Plum was 'ere!


We have had to put killer on the plum stump to stop plum suckers appearing everywhere. It will need more killer later








This was Sarafi's tree. He lived four doors away but spent most of the day in our garden with us. If we were indoors and he wanted to catch our attention he used to look in the patio doors and if he did see us he would tap on the glass. If he couldn't see us he used to climb the tree and look in the window. We could see him if we were eating or watching TV as we faced that window.

 

This was Sarafi


And looking for us, through the glass, until he found us


And then he would let us know he needed attention

 

I'm not sure yet when the trees by the road are going.

 

Definitely.

The solar panels have certainly noticed it! Doubled their input/output this time of year as the sun had difficulty rising high enough to shine on them.

 

I don't bother with woodchip as we always have plenty of home made compost that we spread on the beds.

Yes, they do have stump grinders but charge a lot to use them. Couldn't use it in the plum as we needed to put killer into it. The large conifer stump wasn't worth doing as we have that area surround by trees and shrubs so no point in paying for clearing an area we wouldn't use. The small, all ready cut back, conifer they removed the stump with an axe and mattock.