Tag: Crabapple Tree

Tree Trimming

The honey locust tree in our front yard, placed purposely outside our kitchen window 25 year ago, quickly became one of our favorite trees.

This is a view of the front of our house in 1994.
You can see the honey locust tree, one of the three spruce trees and a maple tree in the back that we planted when we moved in, in 1994.
This photo is from the same viewpoint as above in 2020, after the locust was trimmed.

We planted several trees in our yard back then, and we are very happy we did.  They were small trees, and now they have grown to be very large trees! A realtor once said the best kind of tree is the one planted 20 years ago.

The honey locust before it’s big trim.

But many branches of our beloved locust tree have been slowing dying in the past few years so we needed to decide if we cut it down… or trim the dead branches off and hope it starts growing again. We had a hard time thinking of cutting it down so we chose the latter. 

The dead branches on the honey locust.

It was interesting to see three workers and two huge trucks show up at our house. One truck settled into the driveway. It had a cherry picker bucket that hoisted one guy towards the tops of the trees to start cutting the dead wood.

Trimming the honey locust.

Two guys went at the trees fast and furious and seemed to know what they were doing (we only hope!). Another worker piled up the branches for the other truck to extend an arm with a claw and pick up all the debris then haul it away. 

Our newly trimmed honey suckle, looking good in the evening sun.

And since the tree trimmer was coming we decided to have our crabapple tree get a good trim too.

The crabapple tree before it’s major trim.
The crabapple tree after its trim.

I had an errand to run so I left before the workers were done and I came home to a cleaned up yard and two smartly trimmed trees about 45 minutes later.

Our honey locust, trimmed. I think my flower bed is back to a sun garden…

We will hope it isn’t too much of a shock for our honey locust and that it will start thriving again.

Lilacs

The fragrant smell of lilacs is a delight this time of year. I wish it could last a little longer.

There is such a brief time to enjoy the beauty of the lilac’s purple blossoms, and have their sweet scent fill the air. 

I have two lilac bushes. One is a Miss Kim, a fragrant, smaller bush that is more tame and works well for the spot I tucked it into – just outside the side window off the kitchen. It is a late bloomer.

Miss Kim

The other bush is the “old-fashioned” lilac bush that grows huge and spreads and is wildly wonderful.  It is in our back yard and is blooming right now.

Our old-fashion lilac bush.

I have cut branches of lilacs off this bush to bring its loveliness indoors.

Wonderfully wild.

This wild and wonderful bush is offshoot of the lilac bush that grew in my parent’s yard at the house I grew up in. Years ago, when Gary and I moved back to Minnesota, after a short stint in Ohio, my mom was still living in that house. I thought it would be fun to dig a sucker from the lilac bush and plant it in the yard of the house we bought in Burnsville when we moved back. It took off and grew into a wild and wonderful bush. 

Fourteen years later when we moved from that house in Burnsville to our new home Northfield, I dug up a sucker from that lilac bush to plant in our new yard. It, too, grew into a wild and wonderful bush, and is still growing. We’ve been here 25 years.

So when I place my purple, aromatic lilacs in vases and put it them around the house it not only brings beauty and fragrance into the house, but also brings back some special memories.

Bringing lilacs indoors…in the entryway.
…on the counter.
…on the kitchen table.
…on the dining room table.

On a different note: below is a photo of our crabapple tree in bloom right now, in our front yard.

Our beautiful crabapple tree in bloom.