Eucalyptus tree - Part 3

The stump is quite evenly flat and about 18 inches in diameter. This is a contrasty shot. The plants survived ok. The irises are a bit flattened but they will survive. They now have more sun, so perhaps they will bloom. Behind this stump are the Saskatoon berry trees that are not producing. I think I will take them out and put in more hedging cedars, in the Fall, when it starts to rain.
I rather liked this view of the truck with Graham in the background.
The chipper, at the back of the truck.
This truck has some plants to be taken to another location to be planted. I believe Lloyd said it was hedging trees to replace an old worn out hedge. They do planting as well as removal, of course.
They have some pretty specialized equipment.
The website on the back of the truck.
The last of the tree was taken down in fireplace size pieces of the trunk.
You can see how the stumps of the branches are useful as spots to stand upon. The ropes and harness help to hold him to the tree so he is able to use his saws to cut the tree.

Yesterday I managed to get the lawn moved and watered around the back gardens. I washed off the patio area, also.

Today, Saturday, I spent about 4 hours in the garden. I trimmed the trees at the back a bit more. In the front I took the globe spruce tree back quite a bit. I dug out violets from under the iberis. As I used my pruner on the spruce, I added another blister to my first blister from where the pruner rests on my second finger. Even through gloves these blisters form. I will have to tape over the spot, next time I use the pruner, I guess. The front garden is almost finished in front of the hedge. Its looking quite nice with the pink mallow flowers and the white feverfew in bloom with the blue and white tall campanulas. I need to remove more violets, put down bark mulch and perhaps get a few more tall campanulas for the area next to the black bamboo. I will have to be vigilant about the violets, as they are a real bitch to get out of the clay soil once they have established roots. I watered the pruned shrubs, the grass and the front, a bit. Later we had a bit of rain.

The Eucalyptus - part 2

This is a zoomed shot showing one of the knots they tied to ensure the control of the cut branch or tree part. The knots they were tying were specific to each application needed to accomplish the trimming of the tree to the ground without damage to the small space or to themselves. They did a superb job with no damage to speak of, to the plants in the area and none to the roof.
The tree is coming down! I was shooting most of these photos from our bedroom window that looks out over the garage roof. Unfortunately, I did not get a good shot of a branch falling. At this point most the the branches are off the tree and ready to be fed into the chipper. The trunk of the tree will need the attention of the chain saw, in fireplace size increments.
They would throw a rope around the limb that they were going to bring down next, and secure it so that they could control where it fell. They were really good at lassoing the branch they wanted to work with next. Lloyd would pull on the rope to create a bit of tension on the branch while Graham cut it off. You could see that they worked well together and knew exactly what they were doing. Jason, sidelined for the moment, was dragging away limbs to the patio area where they had backed up the truck and chipper.
They progressed up the tree, taking off the lower branches first. At this point the top of the tree is still towering over the houses.
The crew removed most of the lower branches, leaving Graham stubs of branches to use as footsteps up the tree. As they progressed, they attached guide ropes to the limbs that they wanted to bring down in the next sequence. Graham was using his pruning saw at first, as their were just too many possible snags for the chain saw. As he cut the limbs, he would drop them, avoiding most of the plants beneath. I have a special hydrangea that we protected from damage with an up turned garbage can over it.
This is Lloyd sweeping the debris off the roof. This tree drops some roundish parts that make the footing on the roof very precarious. They vacuumed up the debris on the roof to ensure a stable workspace. Lloyd came over to lend a hand because Jason had hurt his ankle on some earlier job and he had to take it easy. If Jason had had to jump off the roof to avoid the wasps, he would have re-injured his ankle. Fortunately, he did not jump, too far. The roof of the garage is about 5 - 7 feet from the ground at the far end, and not a really big leap.
You can see that the workspace is quite extensive. At this point, Jason had been chased off the roof by the wasps that, it seems, had a nests by one of the vents in the garage roof. The bug spray only made them mad.
After filling out the email form on Davey Tree's website, I had a call within a couple days from Lloyd that he would be around to give me an estimate the next day. This is great.. no time to change my mind! I agreed to the price and he called back with a time to get the job done. The crew arrived and set to work right after lunch.(two days ago) Their clothes were clean and they were smiling and happy. This is Graham, up the tree to begin the operation.

The photos are from two days ago when we had the big eucalyptus tree taken down by Davey Tree. They did a great job! I paid $420 to have this done, but it is worth it for me. It took 3 men 3 hours to do this, as well as having their special truck and all the equipment. These people know what they are doing!

The Eucalyptus - part 1

This is the eucalyptus tree looking out of the patio door and zoomed a bit closer. This tree provided great screening from the house just behind our property, where we have a very unusual person for a neighbor (to say the least). We really needed this screening! But given the possibility of a crash of the heavy tree to the garage, we decided to have the tree removed.
This tree is leaning over the path in the woodland. Every year it seemed to sink lower and lower towards the path. This year I have had to duck under it to get past it on the path. It is a huge tree and the wood is really heavy as it contains a lot of moisture. We were afraid it would fall on the garage in the next good windstorm. So, we called Davey Tree to come and take it down for us.
A closer look at the tree. The bark peels and the leaves have different colors as they age and drop off. It makes quite a mess but is evergreen; or everblue, actually. I like the bark and color of the leaves. Since it is a tree from Australia, it blooms in what is our winter. The Anna's Hummingbirds that stay in our area over winter would be feeding on the blossoms in winter.
This is the eucalyptus tree towering over the garage the day before the 'cut'.