...who sinned against nature and broke your friggen heart...well, I have...

I live in a second floor apt across from a residential area...I see lots of stuff (including the dress habits of the high school kids next door...fascinating).

Several years ago, the neighbor across the street....it was two apple trees...in his front yard...beautifully conformed, fruit bearing. One day he cut every single damn limb off, leaving a trunk and stubs. Damn near broke my heart. The trees died (of course) and he left them for two years before he put them (and me) out of our misery.

I figured...temporary insanity...and I guess I will just have to live with it. But, OH NO...next there were three bushes in front of his house...really set the place off, I USED to admire them. Apparently he DIDN'T...because one day I observed him butchering all three. Each was round, and tall, and also beautifully conformed. He cut everything except the tops, leaving  scraggly bushes, bare assed and ugly with all the trunks exposed...what he was thinking I cannot even imagine.
Made his house look, well, shitty...

Again, with less conviction, I figured temporary? insanity. That was disproved as I watched him prune what was left (3 x per week) into skeletons of bushes.

Now, I'm a resilient guy (hey, clusterhead doncha know)...and I can deal with most anything. Worked this out in my head, UNTIL he next chopped down two evergreens at the front and back of his property. 30-40 ' bushy trees that would not have blown down in any hurricane...did not pose a threat to any building whatsoever...simply just were. Beautiful 30-40 yr old trees. There in the morning, gone by the afternoon. I was too shocked to cry...but I have rarely been more
incredulous.

At this point, NOTHING he did would surprise me, even though there were few living things left to desecrate. That is, except the 20' bush at the left of his property that is the absolute (summer blooming) jewel. I figured not even this knothead would be so foolish as to touch THAT one...WRONG!

He has now cut away many (I pray not all eventually) the base branches, and left it barren at the bottom and less than the beauty it was.

Not sure what I'm saying here, or asking, and what a man does with his own property is his own business, and really none of mine...just wanted to get it off my chest...I am heartsick and just needed to share the outrage. Ignore or delete, your choice, just wish I had the same...SIGH...SIGH...SIGH!

Jon

What a fucking idiot.

[quote]WTF is wrong with people [quote]

....sigh....

i bought this house i'm in from my wifes grandmother back in '05. all the trees in my yard my wifes grandfather planted between 1952 and 1978 when he died. i don't know shit about trees other than i like them. one tree in particular is around 80' tall a 4' in diameter. my wife wanted me to cut it down cuz the buds fall on the cars in the spring time. as if. out in the back yard the old man had 3 apple trees. since i drive otr i never had the time to work on them. every winter that passed more and more of these trees would break off. finally i had too cut them down. when i did i found the inside of them were ate up by ants and bumble bees.

i had one nice pine tree in the back yard but ice toke out most of it one year and i had to do the rest.

in short. i don't cut my trees down until mother nature tells me its time. to me it just seems like bad karma to cut down a healthy tree

I'm not a "tree hugger", but I love the beauty of trees and shrubs and the shade they provide.  

We bought our house in 2001.  It's a 70's brick ranch sitting on one acre of trees.  The original owner who built the house was a wonderful lady with an absolutely green thumb.  She planted flower gardens everywhere, azaleas and rhododendrons, peony bushes, bulbs everywhere, a rose garden and a border plant along the sidewalk that we couldn't identify but was pretty.  These turned out to be called a Christmas rose.  She also had a doggie cemetery  (5 dogs)complete with headstones in the backyard ( they are still there although we politely covered them with grass).

We had no idea of any of this because the owner we bought the house from was the second owner and he literally did nothing in the yard, or in the house, for that matter, and everything was completely overgrown - no blooming flowers or bushes, just downed trees and limbs.

Over the years, we've cleaned up the undergrowth under the oak trees, getting rid of scrub pines, new little baby oaks, fallen limbs.  We trimmed back the azalea "wall" that had been allowed to just go wild, cut the dead off the rhododendrons, and are now seeing the results.  It's amazing!  We have color all year around between the various plants.  We have blooming dogwood and mimosa trees as our growth under the tall oaks.

It's a lot of work - especially in the fall when all those oaks drop their leaves (that's Tarey's job  ) - we blow all of them back under the trees - almost the entire front yard is a "natural" area, but it has been worth it.

Frankly, I don't understand anyone buying a house that has a yard unless they are willing to take care of it.  And, don't get me started on the developers who buy acres of lovely wooded property, completely strip (rape) the land of every living tree and shrub to build the houses, then plant a scrawny tree in the front yard.    Where's my shotgun?  

Sandy

stevegeebe wrote on Jul 24^th, 2009 at 11:17pm:

damn. thats a couple truck loads of good firewood. every thing that was once alive and isn't anymore plant wise goes on the burn pile out back or is harvested for my wood burning furnace. due to all the tree lines between fields my neighbor and i do pretty well with keeping our homes heated in the winter. neither one of us have one of them there non wood burning furnaces ya'll city folks use.

Sounds like the guy has OCD, just a guess. Most folks that have it, can do things of that nature, they can't help it.

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