Let there be light! And sunshine! And sky!
Posted on 02 February 2009
We’ve lived in this house 23 years, and for 23 years I’ve been grumbling about our neighbor’s huge and ever-growing pine tree, which loomed over my backyard, stealing all my morning sun and sucking the ground along my back fence dry no matter how much I watered.
It’s been getting worse for the past few years, to the point where I had just about decided to give up on my vegetable garden entirely, since the lack of sun was leading to more pitiful results every year.
Then SMUD (Sacramento Municipal Utility District) came to my rescue! Since the tree was encroaching on a high-voltage power line, and the neighbor was happy to see it go too, they removed the tree last week!
I would have sworn that the tree would appear in every photo of my garden, but apparently I’ve been unconsciously editing it out all these years, because I was unable to find a photo of “before” this morning. Here’s a photo as they were taking it down and only a tuft remained at the top. Note how high it towers over the neighbor’s garage. Imagine it much wider and darker and denser all the way down. It did hide the wires, which are an unavoidable fact of life in our old city neighborhood, but that’s the only good thing I can say about it. My crape myrtle, which has been living in its shade, will hide the worst of them except in winter.
Now that it’s gone, I can watch the sunrise from my computer, the sun shines on my vegetable boxes ALL DAY LONG and I can see the stars at night.
Here’s my garden on one of its very best days, just before a garden tour in 2003. You can see the lower end of the tree at the upper left of the photo.
12 responses to Let there be light! And sunshine! And sky!
Your garden is an inspiration! If you can do all that with a huge water-sucking, sun hog the possibilities are endless!!
That is so cool. We have a bunch of trees that have grown up around our backyard that we are starting to thin out because they shade our yard. You will have a whole new gardening experience this summer.
Chris – that is a fabulous garden! You might find that you may need to change some fo your garden plants now that they are getting more sun rather than all of the shade. That is one of the things I like most about gardening though – the constant evolution of it.
Wow, I adore your garden!!! And how wonderful that the sun can now come streaming in with light and warmth. Yay for you!
What a beautiful garden, Chris, I hope I can actually see it when we are up in Sac being grandparents sometime this month. We have been in our house for 24 years and I only wish my back yard (not garden) resembled yours.
Such a beautiful garden!
Now the sun can shine down and fill your garden with light. Everything looks so lovely. I’m happy for you that the tree situation was resolved. Enjoy the light!
Your garden looks lovely in the photo, and it will be again now that the encroaching tree is gone.
I look forward to reading your blog during our February challenge.
Thanks, Amy. The sad news is that it turned out to be impossible to keep the weeds from overpowering all those nice between-the-rocks plants, so most of the gaps have been filled in with pebbles, colored tiles and marbles embedded in mortar, kind of a primitive mosaic. It’s in need of a good hosing down right now, but I’ll take a picture soon. I wish I’d been able to keep the original planting because much of it was corsican mint and thyme so it smelled wonderful when you walked on it. I just wasn’t willing to spend a day a week weeding on my knees on those rocks.
Good luck getting rid of the crabapple!
Angie, a eucalyptus would be even worse! Don’t they exude something to keep anything from growing underneath them?
Yay! I so wish my neighbors would take down their dying crabapple that is looming over my patio roses!
I love the plants between your pavers–all those shades and textures are beautiful.
Your garden is gorgeous already and now that it will get more light, how awesome.
Glad you’re joining in the blog challenge!
We had a huge tree, a eucalyptis, that grew so fast and the neighbors were afraid of it. Finally it came down and their garden went wild. Your garden is so beautiful. It must be a joy tosit in it. Enjoy the sun. There is not much sun here in Paris at the moment, I see you header photo. It snowed last night