Tree Surgery

    We have a Russian Olive tree close to our driveway.  I planted it years ago after hearing that the birds liked to eat it’s berries.  In all these years, I have yet to see a berry on the tree, but nevertheless I let it be.  Unfortunately over the years it started leaning more and more over our drive way.  Last winter after a heavy wet snowfall the tree was so overburdened that it leaned so low over the drive that we couldn’t get past it with the car.

    I knocked most of the snow off of it, and it did straighten up enough for us to get by, but over our really wet Spring-Summer-Fall, just the weight of the rain started it lowering itself to the point where when we drove the car past it, one branch was midway down to the passenger window.   That was not a good sign with winter and heavy snow on the horizon.

    I feared that the coming weight would just totally knock the tree over, so yesterday I got out the chainsaw and cut the low hanging horizontal branches off of it, leaving those that were growing upright.  Hopefully that will relieve a good deal of stress on the tree so it makes it through the winter and it will adapt to its heavy pruning and survive.

    Below is a photo that I took of what the area under the tree looks like now.

    

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