Garden Photos Part 1

Yes, I know it's been near on a month since Mom and Dad came up to assist with the ugly garden. Here, finally, is phase one of the photographs from that weekend.



You remember the lilac bush. I think I will call him... Arnold. Here he is, in full glory, before... We came to the decision that, as lovely and full and green as Arnold was, he just had to go. If we trimmed him back to only a few of the smaller, newer branches, we'd never get lovely flowers again, as we'd have to keep trimming him, and flowers only grow on old growth. He was also planted far too close to the house. In the end, we decided that he had to leave us for that lovely garden in the sky...



Dad asked our neighbour if he would mind taking some plant material to the compost over the weekend, as he had a truck. He said he wouldn't, and later in the evening, came over to see exactly how much material we had planned. That was when we told him about Arnold, and our plans for reducing him to constituent parts in the morning. "With what?" he asked. Oh, a hand saw, some pruners... "I've got something better than that," he said, and went back to his garage to get an electric saw...



"Oh, we hadn't planned on doing it now!" I told him, but then Dad brought out his pruners, they ran an extension cord, and before I knew it, Arnold was being cut apart and piled on the driveway...



Soon, Arnold was looking like something less of a bush...



...and more of a stump, and...



...a pile of deadfall in the driveway. He was soon loaded into the back of the neighbour's pickup, and on his way to the community compost the next day. I have hopes that he will help with fertilizing gardens all over the city next year.

This is the first installment of garden photos. Stay tuned!