Trees coming down
So today is my one day a week when I get a bit of a break and get to look after my daughter.
Still with the amount of time I have available I have to make some good use of today. I mean I work an hour away from where I live and one night a week is spent on overtime and there’s another when I am again looking after my fabbo daughter. So with one day of the weekend going on babysitting, two working nights also taken and getting home at 6pm on those other three nights that then leaves me one full day and three nights of 6pm till whenever in the evening I drop down from exhaustion.
So as things turned out I was to pick my little girl up at 8:15am and I arranged to meet up with a tree surgeon at 8am, agree on the work that needed to be done, hand over some cash and zoom off to gran’s and grandad’s with my little bundle of joy – another hour’s drive there and another back – perhaps fitting in a run (did a four miler in some pretty strong windy weather) and some snoozing to catch up on all the lost hours of sleep I had during the week.
The tree surgeon is a star, one day a while back when I’d just bought the house I looked out of the window to find a very tall, very solid looking chap with a shock of ginger hair wandering around my garden. Not realising he’d been knocking on the door I thought he was some kind of prowler, so putting on my brave head I wandered into the garden and enquired “can I help you?”. Said scary chap then turned out to be quite the nice chap and he proffered a bargain to rid my garden of vegetation as he was a bona fide card – and chainsaw – carrying tree surgeon. I said to make me a quote and asked for his details, I motioned to stay put while I found a pen and a piece of paper, but he waved this away with don’t worry you’ll remember my name. Turns out he’s called Andrew Gardener, or A. Gardener for short and get this he’s from the next village up the road called Woodland. So it turns out the tree surgeon is A Gardener from Woodland.
Whether he liked it or not, I gave him the mandatory tour of the house and tried to explain that I was pretty much broke and living on credit cards. Though his offer of tree surgeoness was really welcome he would have to do it on a budget, well he’d have to do it on my limited budget.
Anyway the weeks came and went and I didn’t see hide nor red hair of Andrew. It got to the point that I’d bought a bow saw, a pair of loppers and Santa had even brought me a large axe. I was avoiding doing the job and had put it off for weeks, so I was rather pleased to get my doorbell pushed by the one and only Mr. Gardener. He explained that he’d been over a number of times but I’d not been in, this I can believe as I’m never in. Anyway he’d sorted out a quote and he was willing to lop down the lot for a sum of £750. Now £750 is waaaaay beyond what I could afford and I think that Andrew had forgotten my status or mistaken my working in the big smog (I work in Middlesbrough) as being an indicator of having a disposable income and a Hugh Hefner lifestyle. He soon came around though and after weeding out a list of the trees that needed to be done – two nasty Leylandii – he came up with a more reasonable £130 for the pair. I said I’d get in touch.
Later that week, I reassessed my position and considering the trees that the arborist (the one who’d done the survey for the mortgage) had mentioned as being significantly at risk to the house fabric I decided it woud be better if Andrew were to cut down the two we’d agreed on and some scatty lilacs that were destroying the walls around the end garden. Using the texting method of negotiation we agreed on £180 for the lot and set up the 8am meeting this morning.
Andrew is one of those guys you can trust and in the mist of a cold Saturday morning his pickup drove into sight at 8am just as I was finishing off some last piccies of the trees.
As we looked at the end garden I noticed that there was another large Leylandii in there that we’d not agreed on. But as Andrew is a man of his word he kindly offered to do that too, I paid up £200 as some little compensation for the extra work he needed to do and drove off to see my daughter.
A day at my folks and I returned late in the evening to find that the end garden has all been chopped down. The wood is stacked neatly under the tarps I left and amazingly he’s even got rid of all the branches. The big Leylandii in the main garden is still there, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s realised the task is too much for what I paid and he’s holding out for more and I can dig that. But I suspect that it’s more likely that he’s coming over tomorrow to finish off the job, he’s a good lad is Andrew.
That leaves me the task of moving the logs into the store and removing the last of the trees.
Just to let you know, I don’t like all this cutting down of trees, I love trees and I remember the overgrown house of my dreams in Verner close. It always struck me as so romantic and I could never understand when the owners chopped the surrounding trees down.
The necessity of me having to cut down this set of trees is motivated by an arborological survey that was done prior to my mortgage agreement, citing that a number of the trees I had were planted far too close to the house and threatened the fabric of my house. With this survey to hand I doubt I could realistically secure a claim should something happen treewise with my house, so with a heavy heart I’m cutting down 90% of the trees. The Leylandii are just a horrible weed of a tree, sucking goodness out of the earth – the remaining one is proving a pest to the neighbours too I believe – and growing at an exponential rate, so I have few qualms about cutting them down. The Lilacs are too close to the gable end of the house and the surrounding wall, so survey and sensibleness dictate that they have to come down, though this is sad as I like Lilacs. Also the remaining ones – apart from the hedge – yet to be done all surround the main drain cover to the house, now although they handily mask the ugly drain cover I’m in denial as to what they’ve done to the drains, what the f*** was the owner thinking planting six trees in a circle around the main drain to the house.
This leaves me with a large Yew tree and a garden that already looks as though its suffered a bad haircut. The gable end looks so exposed now but I’m sure the house and wall will thank me for the work in the long run.
Once I get around to landscaping I think there will be some trees being replanted. I do think a bit more sensible positioning and some better tree choices might make a bit ofa difference to the longevity of their existence. I fancy apple trees too, doesn’t a set of five fruit trees constitute an orchard and don’t apple trees and a large press go a long way to making scrumpy. I think having an orchard and having access to lot of cider seem a very tempting combination.