A Bit of Hacking

This is me last autumn deciding to cut a largish pine tree, grown from a tiny fledging pine I found on a mountain walk, a number of years ago, 

Why would I want to cut down such a tree, you might ask? We're living in a world that asks us to plant trees, not cut them down. Yes indeed.

The problem I was having with this largish tree was, that it was casting a dark shadow on the vegetable beds behind it.

But don't worry. the tree is very much alive. I just cut a large portion of its top, so now the light can get to the beds behind and the tree is still alive.

It does look odd, however, with its top off and cut. I'm not sure if it will produce a small shoot upwards to give its top a bit of balance.

I have included a photo of this injured tree. I'm not hiding my rough treatment.

Yes I do admit it must have suffered a kind of shock. It has survived the winter and is not showing any signs of weakness, so far.

It does provide a great windbreak to the plants behind it and absorbs the winds blowing from either side.

And yes I did make my apology to it before I put the first cut into it.

It was hard going with a bow saw, which got stuck halfway, because the angle of cutting was too high for my reach.

Fortunately sometime after, a very windy storm blew the rest of the uncut top down. Thanks Nature.

I used a lopper to cut up the larger branches into neat piles, allowing them to rot naturally over the winter. Some of these piles have provided ground cover to weeds growing underneath.

Pine needles, I understand are good for the soil, but can introduce a bit too much acid.