Chainsaws, tractors and 'Musical Trees'

I apologize in advance for this post because it is a rerun of sorts; well, the work is new, but the subject matter is ONCE again, garden remodeling.  Eric stopped in tonight and wanted to know how many more trees we were going to cut down?  Well, we had 450 trees on 2 acres, sooooooooooooo.........we could probably saw down 100 or so, give or take, lol.

At last we had a sunny (sort of ) day, but the wind was back with a vengeance, too.  If there's been one constant this spring, it's the wind.  I'm not sure how high the gusts were, but there were times it caught me off balance.

The Coralburst Crabs are still blooming nicely.

The morning just flew by, I don't even know where the time went.  I know I spent it part of it working in the greenhouse and with other GADS pursuits.  Before I knew it, Carl was home  at 1PM.  He had to pick up the extra box of oak flooring from the store right after work.   We hope to finish the floor up this weekend.

After a light lunch, we descended on the garden.  We were on our own today, both of the guys had other things going on.  The first job we decided to tackle was moving a Crimson Frost birch tree which was growing in too much shade.  In order to put the birch in more sun, we had to (I know, NOT again!) saw down a red pine. 

Here it is, in the middle of the picture.

And there it goes...

 I see I didn't take a picture of the birch tree, but anyway, the birch is in the same place the red pine stood.

Then, we noticed how much the Korean Maple was being affected by the heavy winds over on the Elephant Mound, so we decided to swap the maple with the serviceberry tree which is near the quarry in the area vacated by the old burning bush.   The maple is supposedly Zone 5, and would appreciate not being beaten to death by gale force winds.  All of this moving around wiped out any gains we made in the last few weeks.  Carl said, "It's like we're playing musical chairs with trees," and I had to agree!  Such are the problems we have around here trying to get growing conditions right.

We had all the new trees to plant from our shopping excursion yesterday so time to re-evaluate the landscaping.  The new Acer griseum and Japanese maples need a bit of shelter from the wind and a little shade from hot afternoon sun, so we felt the best place was in the boulder bed behind the shop.  This is the same place we cut the cherry tree down two weeks ago and replanted an Ironwood and a blue beech in it's place. 

Here we are in the boulder bed now; we decided to move the blue beech into the area the birch tree was growing in so we could then plant a Japanese maple in the area the beech occupied.  (Confused yet?  I am.)  After we had the maple and beech trees planted, we decided the two big, balding spruce trees in the background of the photo above could also be removed so we had room to plant some more of the Acer griseum trees and also the Ironwoods.  Who'd think buying five more trees could make so much more work?

Carl wondered if the spruce trees could be pulled out with the tractor, so I went to get it.  The answer to the question is, no, they cannot be pulled out, at least not right away without a bunch of root chopping which is what Carl did for the rest of the day.

The two trees in the picture above are next to go.

View from the east after we pulled the tree down

Tree #2

Digging for roots so they can be chopped free.

Both trees are history and I won't comment on the DEEP ruts I dug with the tractor!

Out to the brush pile

Our brush pile is growing by leaps and bounds.  Time for a bonfire, bring the marshmallows!

Now 'all' we have to do is fix the holes and plant the Ironwood trees and replace the rocks and rake the dirt and repair the hostas. 

Ok, I did try to take some pictures not involving destruction tonight:

The tree showing up on the left side of this picture is the Korean maple we transplanted this afternoon.

Setting sun in the apple trees

I took the tractor back to Mom's at 8:30 and we finally got in for supper at 9PM.  Too late to eat much, so we had a very light supper.  Well, I have to close, because Joel came home with Cody & Briana and Ann came over a bit later.   There is a Sheepshead game in the dining room and I'm going to see if I can barge in.