Fallen Beauty….

Isn’t it interesting how the best laid plans go awry?  I had great plans for the beginning of this week.  I was getting ready to build my flower garden.  I have had visions of a garden filled with both annual and perennial flowers suitable for cutting for bouquets.  

My garden however, had other plans……

Yesterday evening, I noticed that one of my ‘Desert Museum’ Palo Verde trees was leaning against the fence that blocks off the side yard.  I call this area a ‘yard’ and not a ‘garden’ because it is where our dog run is located.  My husband and I rushed out to see what had happened and our tree had fallen part way over.  The night before, had brought a monsoon storm to our neighborhood and the high winds brought the tree down.  It was only held up by the fence.

I was honestly surprised that this tree had fallen.  I loved this tree…..it’s beautiful yellow flowers blooming throughout the spring, it’s bright green trunk and branches and the welcome shade it brought to my desert garden.

Flower Garden

You can see the tree in the background.  I normally do not take pictures of our side yard because besides the two Palo Verde trees, there is not much to see besides the dogs….

 This is Seiko (pronounced ‘Psycho’) and he is telling me that he is hungry. We did not name him…..he came with the name 😉 The chicken wire along the bottom of the fence is to keep our little dog, Tobey,  from coming in to play with Seiko.

I posted a picture of this tree earlier this year as the sun was setting.  I loved how the sun set off the beauty of the yellow blossoms.

Oftentimes, when a tree has fallen part way and the roots are still in the ground, I am often called to a client’s home to ascertain if their tree can be saved by pulling upright and re-staking it.  This can be a tricky to determine sometimes.  If the roots are girdled (growing around in circles) then I usually do recommend removing the tree because the roots aren’t growing outwards which help to anchor the tree.

If the tree went over because of not being pruned correctly or watered incorrectly, then it might be saved if these things are done properly.  I do remind people to keep in mind if they do stake their tree back up, that there is an excellent chance that it will fall again, which can be a hazard.  But, if they are very attached to their tree and want to give it another chance, then by all means I tell them to go for it.

Sadly, it turns out that our tree had girdled roots and had to come out.  It is difficult to diagnose girdled roots ahead of time because it usually occurs at the nursery.  Either by being planted incorrectly, or by being in it’s container for too long.  When I would purchase trees for the landscapes I managed, the nurseries would often contact me to let me know they were having a great sale on their container trees.  The usual reason was that their trees had been in the containers for quite a while and instead of transplanting them to larger containers, they put them on sale.  As a result, I made it a rule to never buy a tree on sale – I did not want to take a chance that they were in their container/box too long and the roots were beginning to grow around the root ball.

My initial plan for this morning had been to go to our local big box store and purchase the supplies for my new flower garden.  But, instead I spent my morning cutting down our tree with my husband and daughter, Rachele.  Why didn’t we hire someone to remove it for us you may ask?  Well, it is hard for me to spend around $400 to remove a tree when I was used to removing fallen trees with my crew years ago.  I just can’t see paying someone to do something that I had been trained to do myself.  But I think the more important motivation is that $400 is a lot of money to spend when we can do it ourselves.

You know what happens when you start pruning one tree in your garden?  You find more trees that need a little pruning here and there.  And so I also did some pruning on my remaining Palo Verde trees.  *I really like electric chainsaws….they are much lighter and quieter then the gas powered models.

I really enjoy pruning both trees and shrubs.  What I don’t like is having to clean up afterward.  My kids and I usually have a great system where I do the pruning and they help clean up the branches.  But today, three of my kids were in school, which left me and my husband to do the cleaning up 😉

It is usually at this point that I start questioning the wisdom of doing it ourselves instead of hiring someone else to do it instead 😉

As I walked through the cut branches, I noticed some of the few remaining yellow flowers beginning to wilt….

Flower Garden

It made me rather sad…..

Noelle Johnson, aka, 'AZ Plant Lady' is a author, horticulturist, and landscape consultant who helps people learn how to create, grow, and maintain beautiful desert gardens that thrive in a hot, dry climate. She does this through her consulting services, her online class Desert Gardening 101, and her monthly membership club, Through the Garden Gate. As she likes to tell desert-dwellers, "Gardening in the desert isn't hard, but it is different."