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| Andre, left, and John in vigorous battle against the stump of a holly tree that had gotten out of control. |
At first it
was a modest holly tree. Then it was a higher holly tree twined through with
blackberry vines, a good source of juicy fat blackberries every summer. Then it
was a 12-foot holly tree with blackberry vines (and not so many blackberries) being
engulfed by voracious English ivy.
In short,
it was a mess. It was even starting to seem scarily out of control.
After 25
years of watching the holly tree in the back yard of our Saltspring Island
property go through those different phases, we fell on it this week with saws,
clippers big and small, spades and shovels, a trowel, a rake, a hatchet, a heavy-duty
pry-bar, an axe and a mattock.
Not just us
– two senior citizens beginning to feel their vulnerabilities – but us and
three hardy friends who once kayaked/paddleboarded around Saltspring Island in
a day. Andre, Margo and Alison joined the attack on the holly tree after a
several-hour paddleboard/kayak trip that morning.
Andre and
John led the assault on the tree itself, eventually uncovering not just a frightened
rat, but the fact that the holly had grown right beside a Douglas Fir stump,
now decomposing into sawdust and bark. Margo and I clipped the holly, ivy and
blackberry vines into manageable chunks. Alison tirelessly dug all around the
stump, rooting out the tangled vines that had formed a carpet of weeds over
many, many years.
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| Intrepid friends hacking away at the holly stump and vine roots. |
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| John on stump, with Andre, Alison and Margo backing him up. |
The first day’s
attack left about three feet of holly-tree stump above an impressive root. The
second day, after two hours of slicing, hacking, digging, chopping and prying, Andre
and John felt the giant root begin to wiggle. A little more chopping, some furious
spadework, some clearing out of rocks, a lot of standing-on, shouldering and
pushing at the stump, and finally – it was out. Then cheers and much brandishing
of weapons as the victors stood on the root like a beast they had slain.
It
could have been easier. A chainsaw could have sliced the tree down to ground
level and we could have left it at that. We could have pretended the vine roots
in the ground wouldn’t regrow, and quietly sliced away at them for years to
come. But hand tools and hard labour! How much more fun is that!
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| A job like this takes plenty of tools; everybody used something different. |
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| Andre, left, keeps digging while John supervises. |
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| It took a lot of digging and chopping to get out the "root of all evil," as Andre put it. |
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| Part of the work was just wrestling the stump. |
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| Once the stump started to wiggle, the two labourers had some hope. |
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| Victory at last! |
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| Pre-massacre holly tree to right of photo. A pile of brambles, in centre, has already been removed. |
Quite the effort - well done!
ReplyDeletewhy am i not surprised as my young (72) friend Andre and his poor sucker punched wife Margo try to cripple their bodies to an extent that life might stop for both of them along with the holly tree's . I have 2 lovely invasive holly trees on my property so when they visit me here on really beautiful Bowen Island I lock my tool shed and hide the key. That is the only key to keeping me alive at 83. The key at 83 is to keep being me and free of Andre's penchant for cutting down some tree which would greatly bother me.
ReplyDelete