Getting rid of these monstrosities and the giant circle of rock that highlights them has been on our list of Dream Projects to accomplish at the house.
Now that the roof is done, the house is painted, and our living room and dining room are painted...it is finally time!
My Dad gave Josh a chainsaw, and he has been itching to use it. Josh started hacking up the arborvitaes, and the Laurel, and we got them to the point where we could start pulling the stumps out with the truck. The arborvitaes were easy, but of course the Laurel gave us a hard time, it was a long process of: pull with the truck, cut newly exposed roots, and repeat, until this!
Victory! Take that you house eating monster!
The rocks had to go too. It was such an 80s addition to the house, and in all honesty, it was done very poorly. Unfortunately the rocks were huge and there was no way we could lift them, so Josh rented a chisel from Home Depot to break them up.
The rocks were granite, and although Josh gave it a valiant effort, there was no way that was going to work. So, I did my part and called in the big guns.
After the rocks were removed, Josh cleaned and leveled the area. He got a little carried away, and ended up turning it into a zen garden.
While the area was in this phase, we had three separate neighbors mention how much they love that we took out the Laurel. Turns out we weren't the only ones who hated it! Leonard did his own celebration. He loves the new dirt spot.
But, we do live in an amphitheater, see previous post, so some sort of privacy screen is necessary. We picked out a green Japanese maple from my favorite summer place, the Frager farm stand. Only $145!
Josh dug a great big hole. We may have used a tape measure to get the placement exactly right, but since that would be neurotic...I'm not going to confirm that.
I helped by stomping down the dirt.
Now the difficult part - moving the tree. We were told originally that the tree would be 200-300 lbs. Doug, from the farm stand, was excited that he was able to pull the tree for us with so much root still attached because it meant an easier transition for the tree, but this meant that now the whole mess was at least 400 lbs and probably more. Josh worked out a very clever winch system.
It mostly worked. We were able to get to the point where we were almost there, but then we got stuck. Our neighbor took pity on us, and a third set of hands was exactly what we needed to get it the rest of the way. Thanks Scott!
After making sure the tree was oriented just right, Josh filled in the hole.
A little bit of cleanup, and a pic to show exactly how tall the tree is on its first day in its new home.
Add sod....and we're done!
You can see a second trunk to the right of the main trunk of the tree. There is one branch on our new tree that I want to train to grow at a different angle. I used a stick from the old Laurel to pull that branch in the right direction. Poetic Justice.
We could not be any happier with how it turned out, we love our new tree and the way the front of our home looks! What do you think?
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