We took the best day of the weekend to attend to a couple of
spring arbor maintenance items, paring the Bradford Pear and
shoring up a cypress.
As I've posted before, the Bradford
pear is both a blessing and a curse of the suburbs. On the one hand the mass proliferation
of the tree provides an early spring splash of white blooms that cuts through the
muted background of winter. On the other hand, they are brittle, prone to splitting.
We’re trying to be proactive in this regard. Since planting
the tree six years ago, this is the second time we've given it a serious early spring trim. Mama Wordbones says we need to do this before the forsythia bloom. We
may be too late already. The forsythia branches right next to the transformer box have already
bloomed…
Anyway, we removed branches that cross over other branches and
other potential trouble spots. She also snipped off all the suckers she could
reach while I held the ladder.
This will likely be the last trim, for us anyway. Bradford ’s grow fast and trimming will soon be out of the hands of amateurs.
During the Frankenstorm, one of our Leland Cypress trees was
partially uprooted and leaning towards our neighbors yard. Instead of calling
in professionals, we opted to try and fix it ourselves, using a stake and come along rig to bring the tree back upright. We left everything in place through the winter in hopes that it would settle in and reestablish its roots.
It worked too well. The tree is now leaning the other way so we re-positioned and reset the rig and I now have scratches on my nose from wrestling with a
fifteen foot evergreen.
