Ghostwater Garden

The Nemesis Tree

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.

-William Blake, poet, engraver, and painter (1757-1827)

This tree stands in the back corner of my yard. I fear and loathe it.  It's a huge poplar/cottonwood, probably around 70-80' tall, at least. The top third is all dead and there is a snagged deadfall up at around 45'  that is about as big around as my leg (unfortunately, you can't really see it from this angle.)

The birds love it.  It's the highest thing around, and various and sundry feathered ones use it to check out the neighborhood, post their territory calls, or in the case of the blackbird families - just generally hang out.  The wood peckers are regular visitors, knocking their hollow 'tocks' that announce they are in for a meal.  The robins nested in the poison ivy one year.

Mark has the ivy problem under control, but the tree itself?  It's starting to drop things.

We've had a couple of those upper limbs crack free in high winds and come down. There is that snag waiting for a good wind to fall.   I wouldn't care if it were out amongst a wood lot, or somewhere isolated where those dead limbs wouldn't be a problem.  It's a good habitat tree.  We've probably got birds and bats nesting in it.  But my neighbors behind?  They have little kids.  And little kids should be able to play in their yard without fear of the sky falling. 

The tree needs to come down, and I've got enough respect for what can go wrong with this job that I don't want to touch it.    There is a reason the lumberjacks call a snag like ours a 'widowmaker.'  Plus, if the tree falls wrong, we could take out one neighbor's garage, the other neighbor's boat and shed, a play structure, and the electrical/cable nodes for this row of houses... sigh.   

The first robin

The first robin has been seen.
The sandhill cranes have made their presence known, whortling and hortling off in the distance.
There are three tiny crocus buds: blue, violet and creme.
It's almost here. 
It's almost real.

My new aquisition

The neighbor that was renting next door moved out suddenly, leaving a half-formed garden bed in his wake. His former landlord was more than happy to be rid of the pile of rocks, much to my delight. 

So on Saturday, armed with a crowbar, a large wheeled dolly and a rubbermaid wheelbarrow, we went out into the snow to pry rocks from the cold frozen ground.

Here is Mark, loading the first few rocks.  Doesn't he look happy?  That's pretty much his normal garden mode.  He is perfectly happy to build things for me, in that I am exceedingly lucky... but when it comes to getting his hands dirty - it's purely out of love that anything gets done.  Poor boy.

Here we see the full, unfinished border.  It was about 30 foot long and perhaps 15 deep.  We've had enough freeze/thaw that there is about a 3 inch deep layer of ice all along this area of the yard.  Did I mention that Hogglebog is a wet site? 

So the task at hand was to take the crowbar and chisel the rocks out of the ice, load them up on something with wheels, then truck them about 80 feet away to my side yard.  Going in, Mark estimated 6 hours of work, while I was more optimistic, thinking it was about 4 hours, maybe.  Given that I always underestimate how long things will take, we were greatly surprised when the whole project took around 2 and a half hours.  Amazing.

Here is the site denuded of rocks.  You can see the ice that lies under the snow where the shallow bottom of the wheelbarrow has pushed the snow away.  The snow was actually our ally in this project.  In spring, our ground is too wet for the wheelbarrow to run over - it sinks into the muck and there I am.  We were lucky that the day was warm, and that the job was over before the warmth turned our path to total slush.  I was fighting a few soft spots on my path for the last few loads, but knowing I was almost done got me past that. 

So here are a few of the larger stones under the pergola.  Come the full of spring, I will be out there, setting them a bit further in from the path and a deeper in the ground, but I can already envision how it will look. 

And here is my stockpile on the other side of the path.  We easily moved a hundred rocks, ranging from the size of my fist to nearly the size of my torso.  Quite a haul. 

Can't wait to put that border together this year.  The pergola vines were planted last year (trumpet vine and honeysuckle) and I have various shade plants that have been holding until the day that there might be a bit of shade for them...

Is it spring yet?