You are currently browsing articles tagged trees.
We are most blessed here in Greater Victoria with there being so many splendid places to walk. Amongst this number are included favourites such as: Centennial Park in Saanichton, Island View Beach, Elk and Beaver Lakes, Horth Hill, Gowland Tod, Thetis Lake, Witty’s Lagoon, John Dean Park and Bear Hill.
Last weekend we visited a new spot – Francis/King Park – the which comprises 265 acres of lush rain-forest. I thought you might like to see some pictures:
Tags: Photo, rain-forest, trees, Walk
Our arborists paid us another visit last week, in part to remove the remains of a Doug Fir branch on the boundary between our humble abode and that next door to one side, the which had been broken in the bad weather last spring. During the year there was little danger of it coming to harm but the season of winter storms is upon us and we must needs be prepared.
The other apparently trivial task that we sought of them was to restore one of the two openings through which we are lucky enough to have distant vistas from the back of our house. This is the one through which Mount Baker may be seen (on a clear day!) and a determined cedar – which has clearly been cut back many times before – was making multiple skyward bids from the various shoots that had emerged after previous none-too-clever hatchet jobs.
“Like the forest fight for sunlight, that takes root in every tree” – as Genesis would have it…
These operations are always delicate, not because of anything forestry related but because of the necessary interaction required with neighbours. In this instance the tree concerned was not on our property and – having been the subject of attention in the past – there was the possibility of an awkward history to be considered. This neighbour’s property is, however, probably going on the market in the New Year and we estimated that only minimal resistance might be encountered, which fortunately proved to be the case.
As can be see from the composite image below the the works were relatively subtle, though a surprising amount of foliage was borne away to the chipper. The picture does not do justice to just how much difference restoring the bottom right of the opening has made.
Paddy and Mick are out walking on a logging road in the depths of British Columbia. They see a sign nailed to a big Douglas Fir. It reads:
‘Tree Fellers Wanted’
“Ah!”, says Mick – “‘Tis a pity that Seamus isn’t with us. We could have gone for that job!”
I’ll probably get into trouble for that! Oh well…!
We have had the tree fellers in and they have been felling a tree (and lopping some branches). The tree was a little cherry tree at the back of our (croquet) lawn. It didn’t fruit but it did blossom gloriously each spring for all of a couple of days. The main problem can be seen in this photo of the view from our new deck:
That picture was taken at about this time of year two years ago. The tree had grown considerably in the interim and was seriously impacting our view toward Mount Baker.
As can be seen from this comparable shot – taken just this morning – we also had the experts nip out a few of the lower branches from one of those big Doug Firs:
The next step is to persuade our neighbours down the hill to trim back the cedars at the back of their garden, to give our lovely vista another couple of years of unimpeded viewing pleasure.
Since virtually every house in our neighbourhood has views that are not dissimilar to ours this sort of negotiation is quite common. One usually offers to pay the costs and since it makes little difference to the residence further down the slope, those concerned tend to be co-operative.
Let’s hope we also get lucky!
Recent Comments