a huge branch from our old American Elm crashed into the back yard

Friday afternoon we noticed that there was a crack in the largest branch of our 80+ year old American Elm and that it was hanging down a little lower than usual. I called and left a message with an arborist, thinking it could wait until this week. It didn't wait.

Saturday evening we heard that awful sound of an electrical transformer blowing and our electricity went out. The cracked branch was now a crashed-into-the-back-yard branch. Some Austin Energy guys swooped in with flashlights and did something with chainsaws and ropes (too dark for me to see) to get it out of the electrical line then quickly disappeared, like a scene from "Brazil".



Besides squashing a small cherry laurel tree and some of my raised vegetable beds, the branch didn't cause any real damage. Whew.





Today the fantastic Scott George and his fantastic crew from Austin Beautiful Trees, Inc. cut off and removed the branch and pruned lots of other drooping branches from the elm and our old 50+ foot sycamore. Watching these guys do their tree art is fascinating.















The trees look much happier now.


street side before: dense, droopy, crowded


street side as of an hour ago: clean and airy

And shade is no longer a problem for my tomatoes.


new sunny spot for vegetable raised beds


Basil and chard aren't too squashed after all. I need to harvest the last few potatoes and pull out the old bolted broccoli and kale.

identification of mystery trees

EDITED Wed., 11-4-09: Treefolks called and confirmed what Caroline and Pam suspected: they're both Mexican Plum trees!

While I was out voting today, the people from Treefolks' Neighborwoods free tree program delivered our two "small stature" trees. Unfortunately, they left no identification on the trees. (I've left them a phone message.)

The choices (none of which I have any experience) were American Smoketree, Flameleaf Sumac, Mexican Plum, and Texas Mountain Laurel. I'm looking on the Lady Bird Wildflower Center database but haven't figured them out yet. Does someone recognize these?




left tree



right tree

Huge, older than the Republic or State of Texas Sycamore-cousin tree

We're still in France and yesterday we saw this Platanus x hispanica, planted in 1780 at the Fontenay Abbey (outside Dijon.)

A cousin of the common sycamore tree we see in Austin (like the one in our back yard and the one next door uprooted by last month's windstorm), this one's more than 100 feet tall and more than 6 feet in diameter!

Young Vitex tree has begun blooming

I know, I know: wow, surprise! Iris has another purple, cone-shaped blooming thing in her yard. But this is a Vitex tree, albeit a small-ish one right now, and it has just begun blooming. The larger ones I've seen are quite dramatic, covered in purple blooms for a good part of the summer. I think the trunk of ours is a pretty shape, too.

The Problem with Big Trees

I really love our big, wise, old trees and so do the squirrels. But at least five times a year those trees and squirrels cause the electricity transformer to blow and we lose all power. The City of Austin/Austin Energy usually has it restored in under 3 hours, a response I really appreciate.

Thanksgiving morning we awoke to a warm refrigerator, which Kurt diagnosed and figured out a temporary fix until the new part--thermostat?--arrives. We had to throw away a bunch of spoiled food and ate chips, salsa, and beans for lunch.

So this morning when I heard the unmistakable pop of a transformer blowing and the power went out, I was especially annoyed, hoping we wouldn't end up with yet another round of spoiled food. The power was restored in less than 2 hours--yippee!

Back to loving that old Sycamore.