Clearing the Garden

While the contractor set to work this last week, we also set to work on the garden area. Mostly working in the backyard, as there is nothing up front but weeds and grass. Well, except for one small street tree - a crape myrtle - and a bush next to our chimney. I weeded all around the curb and cut out the oversized bush completely. Then, I found a water spout hidden inside it! No wonder is was growing fast.

But, other than that, it's been the backyard. It turns out that Patrick does like working in the garden though in a predictable man-way. He likes using his power tools - mower and string trimmer - and using the big loppers. He would quite like to clear everything to the ground so I have banned him from the rose bushes and the magnolia tree (it may look sickly but we might be able to save it). After a couple of nights, the yard, excepting the rubbish pile, was looking quite a bit better.

From this:

To this:

By the way, look at the base of the Magnolia tree above, and you might be able to tell that there isn't a rotten branch coming out towards the camera anymore. There was one, to be sure, but as I was talking to Patrick about the magnolia tree, I hit the branch saying that it needed to be taken off and it fell right off! I'm not sure what that makes me think about bringing the tree back to health.

Anyway, we've gathered all the trimmings into our own rubbish heap just behind the garage.

While you're looking at the picture above, look at the strange shape of our lemon tree. It's a very nice tree, in that it has great lemons and seems disease free, but it has the strangest shape. We've cut quite a few lower branches off already to get to this point and there are definitely more coming off but we're quite sure now that we won't be able to make this look like a nice tree. It looks kind of nice in the picture above, but try another angle:

Actually, I'm getting tired of looking at the tree and wondering what it will look like with a few more cuts so maybe I'll focus on the tree when we go to the house tonight. I know Patrick will enjoy taking off the big branches hehe. At the least we can work at getting those two lower limbs off.