Gaiety Hollow has been a beehive of activity of late.  Luckily today arborist Woody Dukes was on hand to explain the activities of last week when the stump of the old oak was cut down, the badly overgrown crab apple near the front door was removed, and also the overgrown katsura tree in one of the beds near the allee…take a look at the process of removing the huge stump…

when the stump was down they began to saw it into pieces which was difficult due to all the metal inside…denoted by the black marks…

several pieces still had the spaces where metal receptacles for 2×4’s were inserted in the trunk to support a bench…

The crab apple and the katsura, flowering trees planted by Lord and Schryver in the 1930’s, had become hugely overgrown…the crab apple will be replaced with another smaller crab apple.  The original tree had been injured when it was small but new wood hard formed around the injury…

Meanwhile inside the house work has begun.  First up was removing some paint with lead in it from the living room woodwork and repairing a leak that caused a wallpaper problem (the self-stripping wallpaper!)

It almost feels like spring…(though Woody reminded me that the garden has a different camellia blooming almost every month!)  Stay tuned…