Today was a particularly tough day. Bittersweet. I just saw a quote from another collage artist that summed it up for me:
"A goodbye isn't painful unless you're never going to say hello again."
Today, we said goodbye to our two Malus Floribunda (this photo from 2006).
A 60 year old majestic pair of Japanese flowering crabapples (ok, one was 2/3rd of the canopy and the other, quite diseased and only one third of it). When we first moved in, they were both large already, and created this amazing shade in the front of the house. I remember those first years when the boys were young, and the bees would so overrun the trees in the spring that once you stepped outside the house, all you heard was "HUMMMMMM." It was glorious. I would always judge the state of climate change based on the amount of bees flocking to pollinate the tree each spring.
Fast forward to many years later, and a good third of the larger tree was overhanging our roof substantially. They were too close to the house, and as we are about to redo the front landscaping, they had to go.
My husband apologized profusely to the trees last night, and I pet them and cried. Before, during and after their swift removal. I did look up how to honor a tree you were essentially killing, and so I said a few prayers to the tree, and blessed it for providing us so much happiness in its life. We chose to save 4 rounds of cuts from the base, as well as about 6 pieces of assorted large branches, each about 8-10 inches in diameter, and about one and a half feet long. I'm not sure what we'll do with them, but we'll move them to the backyard, to rest among the garden, along with several pieces of walnut from the dead tree that was there when we first moved in.
And as we plan to plant a few more trees, one of them may be another Malus.
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