Two Days, a Crew, and a Bulldozer

This is a slice of the (very private) north side of our back yard. Notice how nice and private it is? Our neighbor's shed is on the right. Notice how the shed, shrubs, weeping branches, and massive trunk of our neighbor's decades-old enormous willow combine to create an almost-solid wall of privacy?? Notice the view behind and between the two pines and the cool, deep shade. And oh, did I mention the privacy???

We knew for years it would come to this. The willow had been hit by lightning. Last summer I knew it was coming down soon when I saw how extensively the trunk had rotted and how rapidly it had deteriorated since the year before. I was afraid it would come down on our pines. I'm grateful it didn't. While we were sleeping one cold, windy January night, the proverbial tree fell in the forest. We didn't hear it. Did it make a sound?

This is all that's left of the willow. There's nothing left of our neighbor's lawn. The heavy equipment and the crew turned a lawn into a mud pit in two days. This tree was so massive, although it was already down on the ground, it took two days, a crew, and a bulldozer to remove it. I shudder when I think of the expense. I shudder more when I think of the loss of privacy.



Once upon a time we had a cool, green wall of trees, shrubs, and deep shade across the back of our property. Our back yard used to be our own private little oasis. We live out here in summer (Cicada summers excepted.)


When it fell, the willow took out everything in it's path, including another tree, a couple of mature shrubs, and our privacy. Although these pictures were taken in different seasons, it's plain to see the loss of privacy. I knew the tree coming down was imminent. I'm so grateful our neighbor's willow came down in their yard instead of into ours, sparing our three pines.

I didn't count on it taking the shrubs and our backyard privacy with it. It's time to wrap up the research and go shrub shopping. Maybe even today if I can talk myself into braving our lovely, frigid spring weather and fresh snow cover.

Weeping For a Willow

This was our neighbor's 40' tall weeping willow. It was struck by lightning 6 or 7 years ago. It's been slowly dying since. The willow came down in the middle of the night during a blizzardy January snow storm.

It was behind three pine trees at the back of our property. and added substantially to our back yard's privacy. Although it's now lying across our neighbors' back lawn, it still screens the view between us. When the willow came down, it took another tree and at least two large shrubs with it - broke the tree's trunk in half and pulled the shrubs right out of the ground with it's own decaying roots. The losses are stark.

Because the willow was on the north side of our yard, the impact on our shade garden is minimal. The garden is protected under its own dense canopy of three mature maples and is sheltered on the west by a mature arborvitae hedge. The lawn on the other hand, will get more afternoon sun. This makes DH happy, since it's not easy growing a lawn in so much shade.

This is the bottom of the trunk. See the roots? There's a web of fibrous roots on the left in this photo, you can see the woody roots sticking out the bottom. This tree 'broke' far underground. There's a crater where a tree once stood.

This was a good spot for a weeping willow. That's become increasingly obvious as it's slowly declined. Each year the ground back there has become wetter as the willow declined.

This was the view of the back of our property between two of our pines. Notice the cool, deep shade and the nearly solid wall of privacy?

Since the willow fell in January, I've been mulling over what to plant to give us back our privacy. This area used to be deep shade, now it will be part sun, and boggy. We need tall shrubs that can handle winter and spring flooding and summer dry periods. I've never had a wet area like this to plant, and am looking forward to the challenge and the opportunity. I hope to improve drainage in this problem area with the right selection of shrubs.

My short list includes red twig dogwood, willows, arrowwood viburnum, arborvitaes, and winterberries. We have a hedge of cornelian cherry dogwoods at the northwest corner of our property that puts up with wet feet. We could plant more of them. A weeping willow already thrived there for decades until being hit by lightning, and it improved drainage. Would other willow varieties fare as well? Arborvitaes would give us year-round screening. What conifers can deal with the water? The viburnums sucker, would they be invasive? Which willows are best suited to this boggy spot? Which varieties have the prettiest catkins? What combination of shrubs would provide the best bird food and sanctuary?

These are are the burning questions that boggle my mind. We have decisions to make, shrubs to purchase and plant, and outdoor living to do, so time is of the essence! Any ideas internets? sage wisdom or advice? I'm dying to hear what you think.

Requiem to a Willow

I sat beneath a willow tree,
Where water falls and calls;
While fancies upon fancies solaced me,
Some true, and some were false.

On this first fleeting day of Spring,
For Winter is gone by,
And every bird on every quivering wing
Floats in a sunny sky;

On this first Summer-like soft day,
While sunshine steeps the air,
And every cloud has gat itself away,
And birds sing everywhere.

Have you no purpose in the world
But thus to shadow me
With all your tender drooping twigs unfurled,
O weeping willow tree?

With all your tremulous leaves outspread
Betwixt me and the sun,
While here I loiter on a mossy bed
With half my work undone;

Slow wind sighed through the willow leaves,
The ripple made a moan,
The world drooped murmuring like a thing that grieves;
And then I felt alone.

I rose to go, and felt the chill,
And shivered as I went;
Yet shivering wondered, and I wonder still,
What more that willow meant;

That silvery weeping willow tree
With all leaves shivering,
Which spent one long day overshadowing me
Beside a spring in Spring.

Excerpted from "In the Willow Shade"
by Christina Georgina Rossetti