Monday, February 14, 2011

Redwood gets a trimming

Some of you may remember the post I did on History of our Redwood. I take a lot of pride in this tree and made a promise that we commit ourselves to keeping it healthy even if we had to call in the professional arborist or two, this time it took two. In the past I would carefully cut off lower branches as they matured because they become so heavy that they would touch the ground. Those were the easy ones to cut and they would supply a small amount of fire wood in return. As the years went by the branches would still start to bend toward the ground but the point were they attached to the tree was further off the ground so I would eventually have need for a ladder to do this job every six to seven years. Our mammoth friend is now 29 years old and I can no longer reach the branches from the ground or a ladder so I called a company called Arbor-Pro who sent two of their young tree experts out to remove the offending limbs.
This photo was shot about four years ago when we had about six feet of clearance under the branches. This last year I had to stoop over to walk under them.


Because of the dense growth of our tree we had a lot of dead stuff on the inside so the fellows removed a little more than I had anticipated, but our garden giant looks so much better. We are going to have twice the amount of sun light which will benefit the rest of the garden.



I had the fellows leave all the limbs for me and I have started cutting the large portions into fireplace logs and then stacking the debris into separate piles to be hauled to our recycling center. I have an eight foot trailer which has one load ready to go and three more waiting in the garden. Nice fire wood but so much clean-up.
This all took place on Friday and although I worked a bit on the clean-up Saturday the rest of the weekend was spent relaxing with MeMa after her visit to the hospital. She is doing well considering what she went through.

3 comments:

  1. Glad your wife is doing well (better). Spending time with someone you love is much more valuable than a box of diamonds.

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  2. We need to do that, too, Doc, with the trees on the farm. Especially the old oak trees. Just need to figure out how much time the Agriculture Extension will need to do their tests and then do the treatment.
    What a gorgeous redwood. :)

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