Tree fellers wanted

Yesterday was a sad day, from an arboreal perspective, as we finally oversaw the demise of many of the trees in the garden. The first to go were the two rowans that framed the entrance to the drive. They were diseased and not worth pollarding. I'll miss their brilliant red berries against the blue of the late summer sky. I can remember standing Sean up on the front window-sill when he was a few months old, as Angus is now, looking out at the trees just as the sun was coming up and wondering what he saw through his eyes. We do intend planting new rowans. For now, the holly tree on the boundary between us and our downhill neighbour is the prominent feature visible as you drive up the hill.

Sharon has been keen to see the back of the massive cypress that dominated the front aspect for some time. I've always felt it was too big for the garden and it has sucked the life out of the front lawn, but its twin-trunked mass was solidly reassuring and, latterly, the boys had made a den under its cloak of branches. I liked watching its foilage dance in the winds that attack us from the Pentland Hills and it did afford a degree of privacy to the rooms at the front. However, despite one of our neighbours' observation that it had a good hundred years left in it, it too fell prey to the buzzing saws and stump grinders of Delisle, who did a very good job of completnig all the work in a single day.

Next to go were the conifers on the uphill border, which, together with the removal of the cypress, makes the front garden appear much wider than before. Unfortunately it's at the back that we could do with the running-about space for the boys! Delisle also cleared the conifers out of the beds next to the conservatory and below the patio. We've preserved the laburnum and the lilac bush (and the hedge, more's the pity) at the front and the camelia bush at the back. The apple and plum trees were pruned and the juniper tree next to the patio was left unscathed. The cable supplying power to the rear garden lights was cut in two places. Ironically, now that the lights have emerged from the tangle of trees, we can't use them!

The wide open spaces will take a bit of getting used to but hopefully we can come up with a planting scheme that we can maintain that will signal the start of a new era in the Wallace garden.