Serious surgery of an arborial kind

My poor lime tree at the crumbly cottage has been surgically scythed, seriously sectioned and significantly sawn. Why? And was it really necessary? Well, given its proximity to the back of the house, and the fact it had grown substantially since we've been here, I felt it was time it had a trim. However, I didn't expect the cut to be quite so dramatic. 

In actual fact, it's taken more than a year to arrange it. I first made the enquiry to the tree surgeon in November 2019. The company concerned is Belgian and I think they work with quite a small team, so at first it was pretty difficult for them to find time to come and give me advice. We had a number of storms over the winter of 2019/2020 and they were very busy dealing with the (literal) fallout and then, of course, the pandemic threw everything for a loop. Eventually, we managed a visit in May last year in between lockdowns and a very nice man, one of the partners of the business, came and discussed the trimming with us. 

He said the tree was healthy and not likely to fall down, but he understood my concerns and agreed to come back in the autumn to do the job. We discussed methods and he drew us a diagram which gave us the idea that the tree would retain quite an elegant candelabra shape. He also told us it probably wouldn't flower for a couple of years, which would be sad for the bees as they love the blossom on the tree. I almost hesitated at that, but I hope I can provide them with more flowers in the garden instead. We talked about building them a bee hotel, but as the man said "it's not a hotel they need, it's a restaurant!" which made us laugh. In any event, they enjoyed a prolonged feast last May, for which I am thankful.

Anyway, the autumn came and went and we saw no sign of our tree man, so eventually I wrote and asked when they might come. Well, it seemed they were busy with storm damage again (we have a lot of those – storms, that is), so the job was once more put off until this year. Then, yes, you've guessed it, lockdown hit again, so I'd more or less resigned myself to having to wait another year when much to my surprise an email came.  Our man asked if they could come on March the 9th, and did we also want them to bring a shredder (hakselaar in Dutch) to chop up all the pieces? Yes and yes, I said, with some alacrity.

Well, they came, but it was two different men and they made short work of lopping all the branches off the tree to a much more severe extent than I was expecting. I even wondered if they knew about the candelabra plan, but by that time it was too late. Be that as it may, it was fascinating to watch. The tools the two men brought were scarily sharp and 90% of the cutting was done with small hand saws, which seemed to go through quite thick limbs like butter. The main man only used a chain saw to cut the top off where it was thickest, and even that was just a small, battery operated machine. Professional tools are deceptively and jaw-droppingly good.

 

While the one chap was up the tree, chucking the sawn-off branches into the garden, the other was carting them off to the shredder, another astonishingly powerful piece of equipment. It actually made wood chips of everything, which it spat out to form a huge pile in our passage. We still haven't managed to distribute them all yet, but quite a lot of them are now filling in a dip in front of the garden fence at the bottom of the dyke. I have a feeling the rest will find their way into the flower beds, but at the moment, they're tidied away in one of those big white bags.

And that's about half of them.

The tree now looks awful, but I know it will come back and I fully expect it to have at least some leaves on it by the middle of the summer. It is a prolific shooter so I'm not too worried about it, but I keep apologising to it as well as to the pigeons that have used it for their nests for the past several years.

As you can see from the photos above, the day was overcast and gloomy, so below are some sunnier photos of one of my walks last week.

Have a good week allemaal and keep well!