Justify Yourself

Yesterday, Joe and I spent the day in Milledgeville, Ga, in the garden of our friend Barbie Colvin. It was a glorious day in the middle of an ugly weather week. We went down to help her take down a winged elm in order to make room for a new Japanese maple to join the other Japanese maples flourishing in the nearby beds.


I sometimes get resistance from friends or customers who have an unwanted tree or shrub. They can't seem to get past the idea that any living plant should be allowed to live out it's days undisturbed and without any obligation to reward it's owner with beauty, or shade, or some other benefit. I am not sure where this comes from. I have also found that logic does not touch it. But if I could bottle our experience yesterday, I believe I could use it as a cure for this mistaken notion.

We started with a fallen pine, cutting it up while Barbie hauled the logs back to the compost pile. Easy. Next! On to the Elm.


Before we got started we actually talked about the tree and it's transition. It had been one of the first large trees in the back yard when she and her husband had moved here. It had an interesting "two tiered" habit- very weepy lower branches and very upright higher ones. At one time they had thought they would limb it up to open that very dense growth low down. But that would take the most interesting part of the tree out, and still leave the part that was growing into some of the newer plantings they had installed over the years. No good solution to the problem. None , that is, but the chain saw.

Barbie had made her decision, and the tree was coming out. We worked on getting one of the two trunks down, and the very twiggy branches cut and hauled in many loads back to the compost pile. In between that and the second trunk, we enjoyed a fabulous soup and salad lunch while basking in the warm sun and blue sky.

Back to the second trunk, and another few hours of cutting, stacking and hauling. Finally by mid afternoon we were cleaning up the final twigs and admiring our work. Without a shadow of a doubt, the removal of this one tree had opened up the entire right side of the garden to sun, to a view, to a huge bed just begging for additions of color, texture and pizazz.

We could not believe how much better it looked, and could not stop saying so! It was the perfect combination of instant gratification and imagination directed towards the future . Our last task on this day that was just a "try out" of the days of spring to come was to "try out" the new maple in it's new spot , in anticipation of a newly cultivated patch of garden.

I remember several years ago I heard Helen Dillon speak at the Southeastern Flower Show. She was talking about the renovation of her garden in Ireland. I went to see pictures of pretty plants and suggestions for garden design, but I came away with quite a different lesson.
This charming, petite, refined woman went out into her garden every morning, stood in front of the planting and said "JUSTIFY YOURSELF!" If she could not judge that the existing planting at least equalled a potential newcomer, then it was out with the old and in with the new!

Very satisfying. And maybe a good lesson for all of us....
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