Tree Trimming for More Sun

Big garden shaded by catalpa

The catalpa tree had grown so large since I planted it in 1983 that it shaded about ¼ of the Big garden on the northwest corner. The East maple, planted the same year, now shaded the southwest corner of the Small garden.

East maple shade over the Small garden

It was time for pruning back some of the branches on these trees. The East maple had 2 dying branches and 1 branch that had developed oddly. These 3 would be removed.

The catalpa had 1 huge branch with many side shoots and all of these would be removed. The hope was, as a couple of these branches were very big, that little damage would be done to fences and gardens nearby. So this is how it went.

Both trees after

The catalpa after

The East maple’s scars

East maple’s logs

The catalpa’s logs

The branches from both went out to the brush burn pile.

The catalpa pod mess in the Big garden

One casualty of a falling log….

The largest catalpa log came around, even though it was roped off, and landed between these tulips, flattening them all. Fortunately, no stems were broken, and I could stand them back up.

The East maple fell on the Small garden’s fence, but it just bent it a little, no real damage. The Big garden’s fence had been laid down in hopes of no damage. I’ve not put it back up yet, so I don’t know if it survived.

The trees with the magnolia in back, the quince between them, and the tulips and logs. There’s still a good amount of clean up and fence repair to do. Once that’s done I can clean out the winter debris from the Big garden, lay it out, and start planting.

My son and husband did the trees Saturday morning while my helper friend and I washed 2nd floor windows and put screens in. As I looked out the west windows, the West maple had really large leaves from the 80F temps this week.