Resistance [end]

After a summer of valiant resistance, and 45 years of steady growth, my neighbour’s tree is near its end, as shown by the leaves above… Since the holes made all around the trunk did not seem enough, my neighbour’s gardener stripped most of the bark (see right picture). Very sad, considering that the tree was actually doing very well and was first cut based on the inexact assessment that it was hollow and threatening to fall… Now, my 94 neighbour also is afraid to fall when picking the leaves in her garden and she can hardly afford the hourly rates the gardener asks for picking the leaves himself. So I find it difficult to blame her, I should have instead proposed to pick the leaves!

Resistance!

Even though my neighbour’s tree has been turned into Swiss cheese, almost a month ago,

it keeps resisting! Good fighting spirit!

To kill a mocking tree

In an earlier post, I commented on the resilience of my neighbour’s tree. She alas wants to get rid of the (20m) Catalpa tree she planted a long time ago. Despite the tree starting a new growth, she had a(nother) neighbour taking extreme measures to ensure the tree’s death:

As can be seen from this picture, the solution is harsh and I have little doubt the tree is living its final days…

Un-dead tree

In contrast with our earlier green experiment, which ended up rather sadly for the little bonsais, my 94 year old neighbour tried to kill a huge (20m) Catalpa tree she had planted about 45 years ago and which she thought was rotten and thus threatening. As she was afraid it would fall, she called a tree gardening service who came last December and only left the trunk and a few stems, at 5m or so… The assumption was that rain and rot would take care of the remainder. (There was no sign of disease nor of hole in the cut branches, however.)

As it happens, the tree survived the winter and grew new branches over the summer. It is not back to its former glory but new branches of 5m or so have grown from the trunk and hopefully will keep going over the coming years.