The guilt of tree removal.

When we moved in to our house, there were three trees on the lot. A large silver maple in the front, a decent sized English Linden (basswood family) in the middle of the back yard and a pretty good sized blue spruce in the corner of the back yard.

The big spruce, last summer.

While I was still home on maternity leave, a little breeze took out one of the trunks of the linden. Be that a lesson what not properly pruning your trees will result in. We were somewhat crushed, but honestly sort of happy that we could have some sun in the back yard.

Before removal, after the storm.

A friend helped remove it and I used the raised bed around it for tomato plants. Yay sun!

Over the last two years, it became clear that the spruce would have to go too. It was growing into the cable/power lines, and over the back sidewalk. It was either removal or prune until hideous.

I finally got around to getting and estimate earlier this week. It seemed like a good time to get it done, no storms to tie up the tree people, and we have the money to have it done. The estimate was reasonable, so I said come and do it. That was last night. Today I came home to this:

Bare naked yard!

I'm only sad that for the birds. I know it was a bad time for them, but this way I can get my veggie garden in this year. I did say a little apology to mother nature for causing this orphan egg on earth day.


For the record, I'm not totally cold hearted. We will be replacing at least one of the trees once we have resolved some drainage issues in our yard. It will however be placed such that we still have some sun for a garden. The maple in the front allows for no sun, it is larger than my house when viewed on google earth.