Changes to Prevent Future Damage

can lead to more expensive improvements then originally thought of! I have a back yard the sixe of a postage stamp and some idiot planted SIX trees back there! Several of the trees were diseased/dead and needed to be removed.

A huge Bradford Pear in my front yard. It was so big several branches were growing over the roof top and had pulled the gutter away from my house twice!



My back yard:
A Pine tree that is dead and leans toward my house. YIKERS!!



Next we this HUGE Maple tree. The roots were growing toward my foundation. This tree was so big that it drastically shaded my backyard to the point that grass just didn't grow!



Then come the 4 Hybrid Poplars. Three of these trees caught some sort of disease and were rotting out at the base! Very dangerous. When the arborist came out to my house to give me an estimate on the dead tree, he's the one who told me I had a bigger problem then the dead pine - the 4 Hybrids. He told me that these trees NEVER should have been planted in a residential neighborhood! They are very weak trees.

I had to go and present all this information to my HOA because I knew that the request to have 7 trees removed would never be approved if I didn't go out there and explain everything the arborist told me. In the end, my request was approved UNANIMOUSLY!! I was told that has NEVER happened before. The next day I called the tree removal service to get the ball rolling.



I went with Cutting Edge Tree Service. I highly recommend them if you live in the Baltimore/DC area. The price was good and the work were thurough and complete! I have them remove all seven tree, grind the stumps for all the trees and grind down all the surface roots in the yard.

They came out Monday morning and were at my front door at 7:50 AM. They marked every tree and ever root that was visible in the yard, even if that root was only 3" long. You can see all the major roots that were above agound in this photo (between the Hybrid Poplars) and you can see by all the bright orange marks in the photo that were growing all over my yard!



They started at 8 AM and were completely finished at 5:30 PM! Everything!!

Here's what my backyard now looks like:





I get so much more sunlight back there now!! Of course now I need to remove all the shredded wood, grate the yard, bring in top soil, plant grass seeds, cover them so the birds don't eat them and then water, water, water!

Here what my front yard now looks like. Removing the Bradford Pear now gives my front yard much more sun and gives me more growing option with the flower bed in front of my porch.



Of course, I can't do any of what needs to be done for several more weeks due to the surgery. So.... I'm trying to get my Dad to come down and plant my yard for me! *laugh*