Thursday, July 4, 2013

The Cedar is down

Today was the day I removed my massive cedar shrub.
See how nicely I cleaned everything out.
I was hoping to just trim the shrub, but I was told it is stealing all the nutrients from the soil and the roots and fine roots were chocking out my other plants.
Plus to trim a cedar, it has to be done slowly and may take a few years to trim this one, as the whole inside looks brown. So it has to be done slowly.
















I came to the sad decision that the cedar has to go :(
First I tried to just dig it out.
Soon discovered that was an impossible task as I couldn't get close enough to the roots.
Then I wrapped up the branches so I could get closer to the roots, as I still couldn't see where the trunk was.
Still couldn't get close enough.
















I had to cut down the branches.
This really pained me. I was hoping to get it all intact :(
















I only cut as many branches off as I had to.
I was not strong enough, or heavy enough to cut the roots with the shovel. I needed Wayne, but sadly he was at work...and I'm not the type of person to wait, lol.
















I finally used the cutting tool to cut the bigger roots.
I have to tell you it was a big job. It took me over an hour to dig the cedar up.
I did replant it it over the fence, in the bush. I hope it takes.
The flower bed was a big mess. It was drowning in dead cedar pieces.
















I cleaned up most if not all the cedar pieces and raked it up. Ran a rake through the soil to get most of the roots and fine roots out of the soil.
Then I bought some new soil filled with nutrients.
I wanted a nice clean start.
















Here it is all planted up.
It still makes me a bit sad as it was so full and now it looks pretty empty.
















So I went back and bought a few more plants to fill in some of the blanks.
Most of the plants are perennials, so they will come up every year and grow bigger every year. 
















I am just wiped.
I have been outside working on this flower bed and planters for the last 3 days.
I hope the neighbours weren't watching me take down that shrub. I am sure I was quite entertaining, with my fumbling around, lol.

I am hoping to tackle another flower bed tomorrow.
It is more of a major weeding then transferring plants or flowers.

I hope you all had a creative Thursday :)

Tracy

8 comments:

  1. Looks great now...they will soon grow huge!
    Weel done!

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  2. Hi Tracy, thank you so much for visiting me! Great weather for gardening...the bed is going to look really pretty! Love reading about your cottage in a previous post. My husband spent time at Sauble Beach when he was young. When we lived there we spent time in the Muskoka's....love that area. Is your cottage any where near there? His parent and brother live north of Toronto.

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  3. It looks lovely and all your hard work will pay off once those flowers establish themselves. Might even give me the motivation to get rid of a cedar in my front patch, but until the humidity goes (40c today), it can wait! Have a great day.

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  4. wow! it looks so beautiful. all lyour hard work totally paid off!!

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  5. What a big job getting rid of that cedar. Looks like you planted lots of nice things in its place. Should look great next year.

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  6. It looks great Tracy! I hope you are well rested today, you deserve it! I can't believe that cedar, it looks like a real bugger! Good job my friend ;)

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  7. A lot of work but the end result is beautiful.

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  8. Wow Tracy! That was a very big job! Congratulations to you for doing it all! I would have wimped out just looking at it! It all looks great!!! I hope the cedar takes where you replanted it.

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