Friday, July 17, 2009

Trees put to new uses



I seem to write a lot about trees. That's because with the drought in California our trees have been less resistant to disease. We can't afford to water them all, so selected trees have to go. In addition, we had to take down a large pepper tree because it shaded our south roof. The south roof is where the solar panels are going to go. (BIG GRIN)

A couple weeks ago we had someone take out the large pepper tree and three diseased trees. Then he mulched them and left a huge pile of mulch out by the road. The first picture shows the big piles of mulch. I took on the job of distributing the mulch, but it was too big for me. My husband helped a little, but he has other gardening to do.

So, along came this nice man looking for work. I hired him to spread the mulch. He, a friend, and two kids (one kid too little to help) spread the whole pile in 5 hours. No wonder I thought it was too much for me.

Picture two is how my yard looks now. The trees haven't left home, they're just mulched so the remaining trees can survive. We took some of the big trunk pieces and put them in a circle with a large one in the middle. Now we have a rough seating area there. That's kind of cool.

Some little pepper trees and one liquid amber tree are coming up in the lawn and so I'm watering them, hoping they'll survive and make big trees. Peppers grow fast and they mulch themselves, so they're pretty easy. I also have a young eucalyptus growing. These plants are all young and healthy and will help me get over losing so many trees. Maybe I'll even get something pretty for the front yard.

So, all about trees, why to cut them down, and how to help others survive.

Marilynne

2 comments:

  1. I love trees. The mulch looks great, and solar panels sound very exciting!

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  2. I love trees too, but they were the wrong trees in the wrong places. When the drought breaks I'm going into tree-planting mode.

    Yes, solar panels are exciting, but we're still waiting to see the plans about how they're going to do it.

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