Rhonda Bracey: At Random

We have two very large and very old trees on our property. They are the only substantial trees that would’ve been left after the old farmland was converted into acre blocks. And the previous owners (and original builders) of our house preserved them. They are lovely.

But I’ve been a bit concerned about their safety. So it was time to get them assessed by an arborist to see if they needed ‘trimming’ for both safety and fire risk reasons. The tree guys came today and about three to four hours later they left after giving the two trees a BIG haircut!

I felt for the trees — this was probably the first time they’ve ever been assaulted like this — and I was also concerned for any birds that may have used these trees as nesting sites. Likewise any possums (we saw a Western Ringtail possum on the fence at the front of the house one night). But the peppermint tree had branches that were close to the house (a fire risk), other branches that were growing into each other, some that were overhanging the driveway, and several dead branches that have probably been there for years. The tuart tree had a huge branch overhanging the neighbour’s fence (I figured it was cheaper to get the trees lopped than to replace the fence!), another huge one overhanging the driveway, and several other branches that were particularly heavy or growing in such a way as to unbalance the tree after those big limbs were removed. And those big branches I was concerned about always moved a LOT when we have high winds.

Here’s the peppermint tree before they started and when they’d finished:

Peppermint tree before its trim

Peppermint tree after its trim

And the tuart tree:

Tuart tree before its trim

Tuart tree after its trim

The guys were very good — they were polite, they wore all the safety gear appropriate to the work they were doing, and a big one for me: they cleaned up after themselves! In addition to the big mulcher coming in to chomp up the branches, the guys raked and used the leaf blower to get the last of the twigs, small branches etc. You’d hardly know they’d been… except for the missing parts of the trees, of course.

If you’re in the Bunbury area of Western Australia, I can highly recommend Kings Tree Care.

Oh, I did see a lone monarch butterfly looking very lost near the peppermint tree, darting this way and that. I suspect it lost its home 😦 Hopefully, there were no birds that used the lopped branches as their permanent home.

One other thing… I asked about blowing the bark mulch onto the garden but the chief arborist told me it wasn’t advised as it would be too acidic and would kill the plants. It seems such mulch has to sit for 3 months to a year before you can put it on the garden. Which was a shame, as I would’ve liked to see the tree branches returned to the soil from which they’d sprung.