Cutting out the dead wood....!

8 years ago

This morning the tree guys came to take out the dead pine on the north side of the backyard, and the dying old pussy willow on the south side of the shed. Combined with the neighbour to the south's removal of their dead ash in early November, it'll be interesting to see how significant an impact it all makes on the garden this coming year. Since the trees were all dead or dying, it might not make much of an impact because light levels had been increasing as their foliage died off. I think the largest change might be more light in the area to the south of the shed as the willow still had a reasonable amount of foliage. (DH was just down in that area and found willow twigs with the 'pussies' open!)

Shed+ willow:

Before the work began:

Willow coming down:

Willow gone....:

The removal of the pine is a less obvious change.

Before:

Pine coming down:

Pine gone:

Not very different than the 'before' picture....! We kept some of the ~6" diameter logs from the pine to use as 'nurse logs' in dry areas under the pines - particularly along the back fence there where the conditions are particularly dry. The logs should help hold some moisture to support the plants there. You can see one of the trunk/log sections we kept in this picture of the debris pile after the pine came down - the tree guys cut off all the dead branch bits on it for us:

The spring project list is growing.... New planting opportunities to mull over this winter....

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Comments (6)

User
8 years ago
Have fun!
aftermidnight Zone7b B.C. Canada
8 years ago
I for one will be waiting to see what changes you make, although I love your green space as it is, a lovely retreat on a hot summer's day. It always look so cool and refreshing.

Annette
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I'm in a similar growing zone and have 300 shrub roses. Many are green to the tips and require only tip pruning. Others, I remove the dead wood as far as needed to reach good wood. If that requires pruning to a few inches, that's what I have to do. Explorers and hybrid rugosas are pruned to shape and keep in bounds. Depending on the amount of room they have and how I want them to look, determines how much I prune. If I had the one pictured. I'd shape it with a pair of hedge clippers then go back and remove any dead or damaged wood. In our area, the 1/3 method is not necessarily the best method. I think that's good in warm growing areas where there is little dieback. The rabbits got a few of mine too, I clean those up and by late May or early June, mine are all blooming. Some of the shorter pruned bushes take longer to reach their usual size but I have time!
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User
8 years ago
Oooh space...and light. I would not be sighing over the loss of a goat willow - they are more or less weeds here and grow like the clappers - just yanked out a 10foot one which was a tiny twiglet 2 summers ago. Well done, you.
cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
8 years ago
It will be fun to see what you do next, Woody. Do you have a plan in mind?
rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a)
8 years ago
Oooh space...and light.

My thoughts exactly.

(Heck I even get excited when a tree comes down 3 doors up from us, thinking that our backyard will get even a wee bit extra sunlight ;))
woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
Original Author
8 years ago
I'm very much at the 'playing around with ideas' stage.... I'm worried that the beautiful young 'Wolf Eyes' Kousa dogwood on the other side of the shed is struggling with too dry conditions there and may not survive too long. So, I'm thinking maybe I should plant one somewhere in this area. (Since the property drains to this side of the yard, there is more moisture available - too much in spring in the nearby 'wet corner' area....) My first thought was to move one of the Persicaria polymorphas nearby, plant it by the shed and plant the dogwood in its place. But the Persicaria would likely get too big for the spot by the shed. This fall I removed two goatsbeards flanking the end of a path nearby and replaced them with 'Pink Spike' Actaea because they had got too big and were blocking the path. So I don't want to repeat that problem. Currently, around the willow base has largely been empty most of the time - there are trilliums and marsh marigolds in the spring that go dormant. There are also some forget-me-nots that seeded in and a bit of a tiarella that rambled in from the front of the shed. I'm thinking maybe just adding something like El Nino hosta that might look good with the dogwood - or might be too busy with it, so I'm not sure about that idea....

Where the pine came down is likely not going to be planted with anything in particular. It's very dry there - there are misc. perennial geraniums and nondescript brunneras under there; a few striped squill bulbs show up in spring; a mess of suckering clethra somehow manages to survive there too. I'll just let them continue to fill in there as it wouldn't be worth the effort to try to do something more organized with that space!

I was playing around with MS Paint this morning on the plan bed layout I had made of the backyard years ago. I was trying to mark in the change we made this spring to the lawn (adding the path on the south side). I marked where the trees were removed and noted things that affect my thoughts for changes. ~D = 'struggling 'Wolf Eyes'; D? = potential new 'Wolf Eyes'; A = Actaea 'Pink Spike'.

Here is a picture I took in early October, showing the willow against the shed. You can see a native dogwood on the right side just starting to show rather disappointing color!

Cutting out the dead wood....!

Comments (6)

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aftermidnight Zone7b B.C. Canada

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Cutting out the dead wood....!

Comments (6)

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aftermidnight Zone7b B.C. Canada

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cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)

rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a)

woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., CanadaOriginal Author

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woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
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