So as I mentioned in my previous post Mike and I were planning on clearing some trees out of our yard. Many years ago there was some landscaping done in the back corner of our yard by our next door neighbour. You see at the time he owned a garden centre so he had his crew come in and plant a bunch of stuff that straddled the property line. Well, to be fair the garden straddled the property line but the design called for plants to be either on his property or our property. It was a very nice gesture at the time, but this garden has gotten seriously out of control in the subsequent years.
Now it's safe to say that Mike and I are not what I would call gardeners, but that's not the problem here. You see our neighbour is a bit of a tree hugger. Really loves his plants, trees, shrubs, bushs and so on. He also subscribes to the more is more theory in which he crams as much foilage as he possibily can into any given space. In short, he over planted this garden. He over plants all his gardens. There's a literal jungle between our driveway and his house that he lovingly calls a "vista". We have to keep a sharp eye on this "vista" lest it creep into our property and engulf our garage. It's just really not our style, not that we have much style when it comes to landscaping, but we know what we don't like.
In short he had planted 4 trees ridiculously close to each other and much larger older trees. The younger trees were crowded and bending in a ridiculous and futile attempt to get some sun light. Mike has been talking about clearing this garden out for a couple of years and I've been fighting him on it. Largely because I was afraid of our neighbours reaction. I knew he wouldn't be happy. As Mike and I did the spring yard clean up this year we noticed that our grass had stopped growing and was slowly being replaced with moss due to the lack of sunlight. The trees he decided had to come out. I was still hestitant until he grabbed one of the four and literally pulled it out of the ground with his bare hands. Then he did the same to the one next to it. Two of the four trees were thisclose to death already. I mean they are all in excess of 10 years old, there's no way you should be able to pull them from the ground without aid of a saw or an axe, but come out they did. While we were at it we also took down the overly large pine tree that was back there as well. It had sustained some ice and snow damage that left big gaping holes in it and to be truthful it was dominating the area. Our plan is to replant with some shrubbery, nothing that grows very large. Just something for a little visual division.
This is after the big pine came down. If you look you can see the four trees off to the left and how they're already growing into the older tree right above them, angling to the right. It looks so much nicer with all that gone, but I don't think my neighbour agrees. Mike and I happened to be at the kitchen sink when he ventured outside to his compost pile. He actually didn't notice the carnage until his trip back to the house, then he stopped dead in his tracks. Before you know it he was right in the garden at the property marker checking up and down. Making sure we hadn't cut down anything that belonged to him. Don't worry, we didn't cut down anything that was even close to the property line. The funny thing is, he's a tree hugger, but he heats his house with wood. Wonder where he gets it from? Maybe just the old and sick trees, ones that died of natural causes.
And now I'll give you what you all paid to see....... pictures of my adorable children!
Abby during our daily walk down the trail.
It's been a tad chilly the last few days, but you bundle Maya up and get walking and she's asleep in no time.
Here they are all tucked in and ready for a story.
They both have such pretty smiles I can't even stand it.
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