Gone But Not Forgotten

In March I posted about living in a construction zone and a tough decision. Read the post here. Well, the day finally came. They took our beloved tree.

We didn’t want to part with it. All that pretty fall color and dappled shade...the big tree just seemed to belong with our 133 year old house.

During the construction on our street, they dug down about 10 feet on both sides of the tree – digging through lots of big, old roots. The shade tree commission told us it was just a matter of time before it would fall or die and we didn’t want it to be a danger to the house or a neighbor’s property.

Of course, in typical fashion, things weren’t done in the best order. They put in the new sidewalk BEFORE taking down the tree. The sidewalk goes around the tree. They also redid the end of our driveway that they had torn up and cut it to line up with the curved sidewalk. We were told the stump would be ground, so what the heck?!

It sure will look stupid with a curvy sidewalk and no tree there. We were told that they would see if they could redo the sidewalk after they finish with the tree. We’ll see if that happens.

In the meantime, we are mourning the loss of our large friend. He was at least 50 years old or more and had plenty of living to do if it hadn’t been for the gas and electric company running all of these new electrical and gas lines underground. Poor tree.

Now it will be interesting to see what this does for the front yard. It will definitely be a lot less shady. Will it affect any plants? Will it affect what I plant on the porch? I have always had to do shade loving plants for the porch. Maybe that will change...