Friday, October 3, 2008

Trimming our Avocado

We have a 15-20+ foot avocado tree in our yard. Normally the gardener would trim it, but our full-time guy quit this summer and we have someone who comes once a week for 2 hours to mow the yard and water. The rest is up to me right now.

Last year when Ramon trimmed out the tree I was horrified at how it looked. Gardeners here don't learn from training or from professionals, but rather from watching their friends and/or family. When a tree is trimmed it ends of looking like a donut -- with the hole in the middle and round edges. I think it's ugly and ruins the shape of the tree.

Having studied under Paul James, The Garden Guy, from Tulsa OK, via HGTV, I thought I'd trim our tree this year myself.

I borrowed a limb lopper from some friends and got jiggy with it Wednesday afternoon and Thursday. Physical work is exhausting, but very gratifying. We ended up with 7 large black garbage bags of chopped up limbs -- and even if I say so myself -- I think it looks fantastic. I still have a little bit more tweaking to do, but so far I'm very proud of myself.

I did however break a window upstairs while pulling on the lopper and long pole broke the glass! But I managed to not fall off the ladder, poke myself in the eye, or drop anything on the dogs. Overall, I'd say well done!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Donna, your blog is great. It's like I'm sitting with you and hearing you speak. The tree trimming/broken window reminded me so much of when Marty and I were living in the Heights and had to trim an unruly pecan ttree. We broke a window too with that lopper. Had a good time getting glass and installing it ourselves. Thanks for the good memories. Miss ya. Your life sounds like mine only you are in paradise and I'm in post Ike. Judy Gerst