PRUNING

[Placido]

Doorbell rang this morn - young lady whom I shrewdly guessed was not straight out of Debretts addressed me thus: "Want any trees pruned?" I said that it is far wiser to perform such a remedial exercise during the winter months and not in high, hot summer. "Oh", was her sharp riposte.
The leaflet boasts that ******* is a Specialist Tree Worker ( ) and expertly fells, prunes or shapes all kinds of trees and hedges. Maybe I'll give them a call in January
I'm bothered that some folk might actually employ them in mid-July

[Jacksparrow]

The sales approach would indicate to me that the operatives are part of the Bodgit & Runn organisation and are best avoided whatever service is being offered.

[Placido]

My thoughts entirely - although there is quite a nice drawing of a tree ........

[Jacksparrow]

- although there is quite a nice drawing of a tree ........

Really I may have been a tad hasty with my assessment then. Ring them immediately saying you've changed your mind.

[Placido]

Errrmmmm, naah.

[Willpar]

Have had a couple of mornings out in the garden having a tidy up. Yesterday I topped the height of my hawthorn, took a couple of feet off the height. Did the same with my pink standard one. This morning I got to grips with the succulents as they were getting out of hand. I filled two bags with them and it was heavy. I suppose with the plants being 99% water the weight would add up. Have more to take out but will leave that. I want to just have them hanging over the dry stone wall, so that I can have a small border to put lavender in. More beneficial to the bees than the succulents. Well that's the plan anyway.

[Placido]

Coincidence, Willpar !! I'm planning on pruning hither and yon at the weekend - temp. is promised to be 60F, says The Man

[greenfinch2]

My neighbour had Placi"s visitor from last year ,and within an hour the massive Fir tree was gone the crows are not happy ,but my bedrooms are it was planted in 1972 my neighbour informed me.

[Placido]

Seriously though (yes, 'onest, seriously), I wouldn't employ an itinerant, spur-of-the-moment jobber for something as skilled as tree management. It sounds simple but it truly isn't.

When I had my mulberry moved last December - I may have mentioned that ..... - Paul took 2 visits to do a proper job and I note from my kitchen calendar that he is coming back "in spring" to check all is OK. Now that's what I call a proper job.

I s'pose killing a mis-sited (I made that word up ) tree is simple enough and can't really do any harm but pruning and moving are very different fish kettles.

I've got a Thing about trees. To my mind they're just as much living creatures as, say, blackbirds.

[JooMoo]

Hubby "invited" me to join him in a B&Q visit this morning to pick up some paint. I agreed 'cos I wanted to get some new gardening gloves and some secateurs.
So as well as them, I bought an extendable branch lopper tree pruner thingiemabobs. http://www.diy.com/departments/verve-tr ... 217_BQ.prd

I had great fun with it. It's really effective. I called over the fence to the neighbour that backs on to my garden to say "do you mind if I attack your bay tree" to which she replied "go for it"
I preferred lopping without the saw on the end as I'm sure I'd have my eye out or something, the way I was bandying it about.
After getting a leaf in my eye, I went and put some safety glasses on. They helped as a branch bounced off my head.

So now I have a huge pile of branches that I'm not sure what I'm going to do with. I think we'll let them die off a bit, then have a night sat outside with a few beers and a chiminea to burn it all off.