Mistakes Were Made...

Ten years ago we bought the home in which we currently reside. The Previous Owners (PO) had planted two lovely little evergreen trees on either side of the windows at the front of the house that we...thought were okay. They weren't our favorite, but whatever.

One of the trees died a few years back, so we plucked it out of the yard as one does. The second one continued to thrive, and grow out of control because we neglected it, but only recently had it come to my attention how out of control it really was. It kind of looked like a giant green starfish. Actually that entire front area has vexed me from the start. The PO's had created a stone border flowerbed in front of the windows and around the two trees. That area is a pain to maintain because every year weeds and anthills pop up like daisies, which incidentally, won't pop up in that area.

Last year, I stopped trying to plant stuff and just put down black screen weed blocker and rocks. Then I dropped some pave stones and a couple of potted plants in the bed to make my life easier. Spring came last week while we were in Utah and when we got home the flower bed that I had so lovingly filled with rocks and junk was once again covered in weeds. How the hell...whatever.

Anyway, back to the tree. I was looking Evergreen over and realized how out of control it was. Babe and I have planned to add a red oak to the front yard, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to lose that evergreen. So I took my trimmer out of the garage and set to work shaping it up. It was going really well...at first.

I was trimming those branches like a champ. One of the neighbors even offered use of his telescoping hedge clippers so I could reach the higher branches. I learned two things using that tool. The first being, my aim is just...terrible. Which may or may not have something to do with the second, I have miserable upper body strength. Mr. Neighbor Guy also grabbed a ladder and cut off the top four feet of the tree.

I cleaned out all of the branches at ground level as well as the dead and dying branches, which all happened to be at the back of the tree where it touches the house. Things were coming along pretty well until I took off this one branch.

                                                               

This was the good side.

I really don't know what happened. It was just one branch. Who knew one branch could cover so much space and then not? It was seriously dumbfounding. One branch undid all of the work I had accomplished. Now, my out of control Evergreen had become a middle aged man tree who had lost his comb over. It was so downhill from there.

When we moved in, the tree stood at a 90 degree angle. As I cut back the branches I realized it was now leaning at a more acute angle. So no matter how well I managed to trim it up (not that that was going to happen) nothing was going to cover the fact that it leaned. Try as I might to clean it up, in the end it just looked like a five year old had taken a pair of scissors to his sisters Barbie. After which, Barbie went to a bar and got sloshed so now she's leaning on the bar wearing one shoe and asking the guy next to her if he thinks she looks pretty.

It wasn't going well is what I'm saying.

The right next door, next door neighbor and his wife came home after I had brutalized the tree, and he choke/snorted, "Good job!" to which I replied, "Don't lie to me!"

Eenie had a good laugh when she got home. We then noticed (because we're observant like that) the branches from the trunk out were dead and/or dying so mayhaps the tree should just be put down. Also, the whole thing rocked like a nineties boy band.

                                                                   

Who Runs the World...Eenie!

Eenie volunteered to try taking it down. She huffed and puffed, but the tree refused to budge. Even our neighbor from the other side made an attempt (we have super helpful neighbors). I heard him mutter, "por que?" as he pulled from one side while Eenie pushed from the other. So much fun. I was rethinking cutting it down until I saw it in the light of day the next morning. It looked so much worse.

I cut it down.

Mistakes Were Made...

Sometimes you just have to recognize it's too broken to fix.