Old Man Cherry

When we first moved into our last home it was Sept 2006. In the back corner of our yard stood a great old cherry cherry. In a neighborhood where cherry trees line the streets, this was the grand daddy of the all, spending his retirement creating the cool shade of my back yard. He must stand 25 - 30 feet tall with a wide reach. This tree may not live much longer and the year we moved in there did not appear to have been much of a crop. There were no pits or stems on the ground or in the alley way under his stretched out limbs. The next year was much the same, no crop. In the summer of 07 I added some composted top soil underneath to start a small garden, and started a compost bin underneath as well. (Side note, a compost bin under a tree is not usually a good idea, but with the age of this cherry I don't expect its roots to grow up into the bin.)

I think that with those two steps combined with the dry spring and early summer, which allowed for more pollen to float around and find its way into the cherry blossoms, this year we got a bumper crop of delicious dark red cherries.The challenge of harvesting a cherry tree this age is the height. There are no branches low enough to reach the ground and I do not own a step ladder. I started on the roof of our carport the first day. The second day I tried to get a ladder in the alley before the neighboring produce store's multitude of delivery trucks started their daily pilgrimage of keeping the store stocked with fresh produce and clogging my alleyway. When the first truck did arrive I was up an extension ladder resting on an old tired arm that swayed with my every movement, with my wife holding the base and trying to maintain control over our 2 year old running around the hood in a diaper. The drivers offer their assistance.
Being able to get up on the truck gave me access to many branches with have to move a ladder around and I was able to fill two containers within 30 minutes.
We snacked on some, a pie was made and the rest went into the freezer to be enjoyed in the winter.

Our new home, an apartment you will learn more about in future posts, does not present the opportunity to pick cherries right in the back yard, but it did come with a deep freeze, so we have been making more trips to the farmers markets and u-pick berry farms and filling the freezer for winter. The next few years will bring a chance to learn many new things, like the art of freezing and container gardening. We are also gearing up to learn more about canning and preserving.

I hope you will continue to read and learn along with us.

Here today

Look at the size of this Cherry Laurel Hedge, Prunus laurocerasus. She stands proudly at about 12-ft and provides privacy and protection from the busy alley way behind this house.

Here it is from the alley. Other than needing a little trimming on the top nothing wrong with this old girl right?

Have a look at the side view. Nice and full, lush, think. A good sound barrier. Do you see the post of the carport on the right side? That represents the property line and here in lies the problem. The city has ordered it to be removed! I hated to do it, but when asked to quote the job I jumped right in. Most conventional companies would have brought in a backhoe and some chain saws and had that sucker down in a matter of a couple hours. Is this really the most cost efficient way. For the company yes, they can have the job done and move on to the next, completing 4 or 5 small jobs like this in a day.

But what about the cost on the environment. Those small little two stroke chainsaw motors give off more emissions then a mid sized car. Most backhoes are not much better.

Besides that, the equipment and operator could cost you between $1500 and $2000. The manual labour doesn't cost that much.

With those facts in mind, these are the tools that I brought to the job site. Saws, pruners, loppers, shovels, picks, and brooms.

No time to waste. We got right to it cutting back the branches and dragging them away.

We left a couple feet of trunk so we could have the leverage to remove the stumps. If most of the root ball is not removed the hedge will grow back, and very quickly.

After seeing this gnarly, twisted trunk one has to wonder if the hedge had been cut to the ground once before and this is shoot. That could be why the hedge itself is growing off the property.

The extensive roots made this job very challenging. One can certainly see the draw to use heavy equipment. But this is a choice of what's better for everyone, not just one person.

Besides reducing the carbon footprint that could have been made to remove this hedge, we wanted to make a difference another way as well. We wanted to reduce the impact this job would have on the local landfill. The city have Vancouver does have a good green waste program where materials are chipped and/or composted and used in local parks. But there is still a great burden put on the system not to mention the carbon foot print of the process. Trimmings are delivered to the transfer station, then pushed into a tractor trailer by a large loader, haul to the facility, chipped, loaded again, and hauled into the parks. The more material that we can keep on the property for reuse the better. We removed as many leaves as was possible in the time allotted. We filled this wheelbarrow and container as well as a black garbage can. These leaves can be saved and distributed into the compost through the year. We also cut any stocks that were straight enough and thick enough to be burnt in the fireplace for winter warmth. The ashes can then be mixed into the garden in the spring as a good source of potassium in the form of pot ash. These methods of reusing materials is the essence of sustainability.

By doing this we managed to reduce that 12 ft by 10 ft long Cherry Laurel hedge enough to fit into this trailer. I use a uHaul trailer instead of buying my own for 2 reasons. First, I do not yet need a trailer and the additional cost that goes with it, storage, insurance, repair etc. Not to mention the waste of materials that goes into making a new trailer. And a uHaul trailer is very affordable, $20 per day flat rate. When the time comes I will buy a used trailer to reduce my impact.

After a few weeks the owner decided to replace the Laurel with a Cedar Hedge, Thuja occidentalis, but not add any soil. The existing soil is not to bad after removing the Laurel, except it is loose and doesn't hold water very well.

We planted six Cedar about 2-ft apart stock to stock as the roots of the Cherry tree would allow. I then spread some of the leaves over the ground to protect from water evaporation in the soil and to add nutrients. We kept them wet for the first couple weeks, watering in the evening after the heat of the day. My son is seen here helping with the process.

A week or so after the Cedars where in the ground, Vancouver was hit with a heat wave and heavy water restrictions. I did my best to adhere to the restrictions and give the hedge ample water. I think two of them will need to be replaced but I will give them every chance to bounce back.

Sneak peak

Now that the main computer has finally been put back into order after the keyboard met its match with a glass of water, I can get back into the blogging.  Now some of the pictures I need are on the main and others on the laptop so I have some coordinating to do.  But here is a sneak peak.  

This Hedge had to come down and it was tackled with only...

These tools, and some brawl from their operators.

Coming soon.