Of Perception, Beauty, and Necessary Evils

It was great talking to Bill Bird of Sacramento Vegetable Gardening http://sacramentogardening.blogspot.com/ on friday. Didn't give him the nickel tour as it's only worth 2 cents currently. I have not really started the prep work for my summer garden as I have been wanting to get my trees trimmed before I put fragile flowers in the back yard. My trees haven't been trimmed in 35 years or so. They were overgrown on the outside and congested in the middle with crossing branches and some hangers stuck in there. The magnolia was starting to show some signs of stress, the pine tree has pitch beetles, and the sycamore was providing too much shade in the backyard as evidenced by the moss on the garage and house roof. I also wanted to get more hours of sunshine on my fencerow vegetable planters as well as the new bee attracting flower bed I'm getting ready to plant.


Even with the overgrowth man did my trees look good. The magnolia was a 50 tall, luscious green, solid mass of beauty. Covered in giant white flowers in late spring it was by far the most magnificient tree in a neighborhood of many beautiful looking trees. It provided great shade to the front yard, my house in the morning and my neighbor's in the afternoon and evening.I knew I had to have them trimmed. I did not want to alter their looks but trimming would do just that. Pruning was a necessary evil to promote their long term health, the life of my roof and the success of my new fencerow planters. With much reluctance I had collectied quotes and finally had chose the company to do the deed. The date was set and they arrived, climbed around in my trees for 4 hours with chainsaws blaring, lightened my wallet by a grand and left. The tree you see on here is my formerly solid beautiful magnolia. I know it will be beautiful again and even healthier but for now I tend not to look at it. I can't stand how it looks. All my friends and neighbors say it looks fine and is better off.
The dove that nests in it every year even eventually found her nest in it. I think it looked as different to her as it does to me. She flew up to a crook four feet away from her nest and then to the ground repeatedly for an hour trying to find it. One she found it she settled in and has been fine. I hope our next storms do not have alot of wind with them as she doesn't have very good cover from a south wind anymore.
The minimal pruning that was done to my pine to get it out of the city's sycamores out front has probably displaced an annual visitor to my yard. That is if she hadn't already left due to my new finch sack feeders. The hummingbird that returns every year to nest in the same nest in my pine tree was not a big fan of the noisy finches that had congregated to eat thistle seed from the socks. For some reason the pruner decided to cut back the branch that contained the hummingbirds nest so I don't know if she'll show up again and nest here or not. I have put in some hummingbird flowers out front just in case.
Time will bring back the beauty of the trees and hopefully the hummingbird as well.

Here's a few pictures of my neighbor's roses. Most of mine are still buds.