Have I ever told you that I avoid the outdoors? I’m super comfortable staying inside in my tempered home, laying on the couch or sitting in front of the computer. I mean, I do go outside every single day (although, if I didn’t walk Tootsie, I might not, ha!); and it’s not that I don’t like going outside… it’s that it’s such a chore! You see, I’m an extremely pale red-haired individual, so going outside means layering up on sunscreen and trying to keep my pasty complexion from turning into a tomato. What does this have to do with DIY projects? Well, now imagine you have a huge list of outdoor to-dos, a desire to actually make your yard look presentable, but no will to actually do any work (and a Husband who for some reason, doesn’t want to do all your physical labour, pah!). All this pre-amble to say that I finally got around to busting out a pair of shears for trimming trees and tackled the beast of a bush in our front yard that’s been bugging me since June!
Yes, I said June! I had noticed that the small tree in the front yard was getting a little out of hand, and at the start of July I took some pictures and figured I’d get to chopping it down. Well, it’s clearly mid-September, so I figured I needed some new pictures as the tree had grown even more!
We had added a paver pathway after we did the concrete walkway in the front yard. Notice how the tree started growing over the path? Kind of hard to use the walkway that way!
My mom says it’s a dogwood bush, and I tried to convince the Husband that we should have it moved to another area of our yard. I wanted to get a nice evergreen here (maybe a fun spiral one!) so that it would remain green all winter, and would only really grow upwards instead of out and into our walkway.
Oh and let’s ignore the crazy influx of weeds that came up this summer. This is what happens when the tree blocks the path!
(Or maybe it’s the whole me avoiding the outdoors thing…)
My parent’s had actually gotten us some garden shears (for trimming trees of course!) and I was actually surprised how easy it was to use them. They must have sprung for some fancy ones, because I was anticipating having to use a lot of muscles to get through all the branches, but it was a breeze!
I went to town cutting all the low branches that were in the way of the walkway, and I would come back and look at the tree and make sure it was even.
I took out all the offending branches, cleared everything out (pulled some weeds) and waited for the Husband to get home to show him how amazing I was.
Seriously, we brought out the whole family and I pointed out all the amazing work I did.
Then, you-know-who mentioned that there were still some branches in the way, so I chopped a bit more and cleaned up the area again.
So now, at the end of summer, our tree has finally been trimmed and you can actually walk on the path again without fear of getting attacked by branches.
Although, because it’s a bush and not an actual “tree”, the base kind of looks crazy with all the chopped off pieces, and I’m kind of hoping that we’ll eventually get a nice fir tree for this area instead. But at least it will be easier to access to dig out, right?
And technically, while I did pull a TON of weeds, there are still a lot more. I figure by the time I get to them it will be winter and they’ll be gone already :)
Trimming trees is not a hard task, as long as you have the motivation to actually do the work and not procrastinate for months like I did! I think the optimal time to actually trim plants is in the spring, but considering I’m no expert gardener – you should probably consult some more reliable sources :)
Because I’m pretty sure the technical term is “pruning”…
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