Saying goodbye to an old plum tree

We reached the end of an era in our yard and garden last week. Our Greengage plum tree came down. It had been showing signs of stress for awhile and we made the decision to remove it. I scheduled to have a tree company come out, all the while fretting about how hard it would be to watch them cut it down. When they arrived, they needed a place to park and put their equipment, so I offered to relocate my car around the block. When I got back five minutes later, the tree was gone.

I asked the two guys who removed it, if they could save any remaining plums and they told me there weren’t any. And, as they dug up the roots, they said that many of them were split or dead.

It’s true that without the plum three there, there is more light in our tiny yard and we can see more of our garden. The plum tree had bee situated smack in the middle and blocked our view of the plants  surrounding it.

Even though there were more reasons to remove it than keep it, I loved our unique tree. Greengage plum trees are not very common and I was sad to see it go. But its time had come.

I will miss…

Delicate white flowers in the spring

The tree’s crooked, time-worn stance and the architecture of its branches in winter

And of course…the plums

Those amazing Greengage plums

I have wondered if the removal of the poplars was the cause of the plum tree’s demise. Too much root damage from grinding the nearby stumps and roots of the poplars. But no matter the reason, the tree was no longer producing fruit, appeared to be stressed because it was sending up more and more suckers farther afield. Then there were the hornets who came to feast on the abundance of aphids. I was admittedly reluctant to remove this sweet old tree, but hornets were the last straw.

My close friend and gardening companion, Carrie, reminded me (more than once) to look at this change as an opportunity for more garden creativity. She’s right, of course, and I do enjoy imagining, designing and planting anew, but I know I’ll also squirrel away a few memories from the days when our garden had a Greengage plum tree.

The yard without its plum tree

The rest of our garden…

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Take the road less traveled, Beth