A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs,

like life itself.

 – May Sarton, novelist and poet, 1912-1995

Faithful readers of my blog will remember that Big Papa and I fondly refer to our house as the Urban Cabin. And for good reason: our small, humble home was built in 1898.

When Big Papa and I first started dating, one of our early dates (date #3?) was an afternoon spent raking leaves, copious amounts of leaves from the two giant Poplar trees that a previous owner planted in the tiny back yard behind our house. This owner did not like looking at the imposing pink (yes, pink!) apartment building that borders the south end of the property, so she chose trees that would grow very quickly to camouflage the view, emphasis on very quickly. These two trees are now 60 feet tall.

Poplars are a poor choice for an urban lot for many reasons: they grow very tall; they have large, shallow and potentially invasive roots; they are prone to a host of diseases; and, they are rather short-lived (15 years on average). Our trees are now showing signs of all of these aforementioned problems and we decided it was time to take them down.

In addition to the Poplars, the right third of our 18 by 40-foot yard had three Greengage plum trees and one apple tree. If you do the math, you’ll arrive at the sum of six trees crammed into approximately 225 square feet of yard space. That’s a lot of trees for a little yard.

In the eight years since Big Papa and I first met, our yard has undergone an amazing metamorphosis. Together, we planted the shade section (where the trees are located): bleeding heart, hostas, ferns, hellebore and heuchera were tucked here and there to give this part of the yard a woodland appearance.

Then, after the remodel of the back of our house, we dug up the remaining two-thirds of the yard and redesigned it entirely to be a potager (kitchen) garden, with four planting beds, brick paths, a fence of espaliered apples, two herb beds and a birdbath ringed with thyme in the center of it all.

We enjoyed the (literal) fruits of our labor for four years, until this past weekend when we started a new project, one which will change our landscape in ways it hasn’t changed in at least a decade. Five of our six trees are coming down.

One of the three plum trees went first. It was difficult to see it go but it was growing in between the two 60-foot Poplars and if we didn’t take it down ourselves, it would come down with the big trees.

Next we took down the old apple tree. We’ve both bemoaned the poor job of pruning by previous owners. What little of the tree was still leafing out, hung over our fence into the neighbor’s yard, and its skeletal shape resembled a scarecrow more than an apple tree.

Big Papa and I spent the better part of an afternoon, chopping, sawing, and discarding. We filled our yard waste bin and two yard waste bags to their very brims. Smaller ground plants were transplanted into a temporary bed to await their new home when we rebuild that corner of our yard.

Around 6:00 in the evening we noticed the strangest thing: sunlight—SUNLIGHT—streaming in from the west side of our yard. Our “shade garden” was no longer in the shade. We both stood there and marveled at the sight.

On Friday, a tree company will come and take down the Poplar trees. On Saturday we’ll remove another sickly plum, which will leave only one of the six original trees, a Greengage plum.

In a few weeks, we’ll plant a new tree, a Stewertia, where the Poplars once stood. We’ll find different plants to fill in the gaps where the apple and pear trees were. And, once again, our garden will be transformed.

Take the road less traveled,

Beth