Tree guy came today to see about reducing the shade canopy on my front lawn. I mean, I like that curtain of green between me and the neighbours, but let's face it, the ironwood's lower branches have spread past a joke. Also they've shoved the birch tree out, so one of the birch's trifurcates leans at a precarious angle into the street above the parked cars. Had I my druthers, that westernmost portion would all come down, leaving the remaining two trunks upright. Alas, trees planted by the city are city trees, and the city is cracking down HARD on the companies that are allowed to trim them. This is because several of the companies that are actually licensed to care for city trees were being egregiously fraudulent: like the one a few years back that told Prof of Islamic Studies they needed to trim his modest magnolia, and then snipped off a foot of branch, end work order. So now all cutting work gets inspected and major alterations must be approved in advance.
Though god knows, I keep seeing what look like healthy trees being taken out, most recently and disastrously outside my coffeeshop, where the maple across the street used to provide flickering shade for the patio and the front section, which are now exposed to the pitiless morning burn. True, I always sit at the back because even with the maple, the glare at the front was too much for my cataracts. But the light quality has all changed and it makes me sad.
I'm reasonably sure that Cohen and Masters will give me far more sun than I want at the front of my house, though they're not proposing anything as drastic as the chop they did on the cherry tree four years back. And as the cherry has rebounded from that, so I fancy will the ironwood.
