The Shrubbery

“First you must find… another shrubbery! Then, when you have found the shrubbery, you must place it here, beside this shrubbery…”  What?!  We’re talking about shrubbery tonight on the blog so isn’t it a given that we whip out Monty Python quotes?!  Anyway…we owe you an update, or two, or three about the progress we’ve been making on our front porch ever since we ripped out the windows (with intentions of repairing them).  Since we snapped these pics of our shrubs back in late August, I think it’s time we got around to posting about them…and more importantly what we did to them.  So let’s talk shrubbery, and the overgrown shrubbery around our front porch.

We had a bit of an overgrown shrub situation going on beside our porch.  The shrubs have been a bit on the overgrown side since we bought our home.  Fast forward three years and they’re even more overgrown than before.  So much overgrown that they’re growing into the house.  Case in point…the burning bush growing into our porch windows.  Why hello shrubbery!

That right there is one of the major reasons why we have so much rot and damage going on with the windows out here (learn more about our porch problems).  You see, when it rains the water drips down through the leaves of the bush.  That water then drips down behind the sill stop, pooling at the base of the sash, and the sun never hits the sill to help dry it out.  The bush had to go.  So out came the loppers and down went the bush…one branch at a time under Goose’s careful observation.

One bush down.  Which left us with two more to go, one evergreen and another burning brush.  The burning brush on the right wasn’t as big as the first one I took down, the one on the other side of the porch, but it was also planted too close to the house.  Same with the evergreen….just a bit inside (my favorite Major League quote).

So I chopped down bush number two while Colby took the chain saw to the evergreen.  Apparently, tonight is movie quote night…

It didn’t take Colby long to take down the tree.  A few minutes and swipes of the chainsaw to take off all the low-hanging branches, which exposed the trunk.

Then a few more minutes to chop down the tree at the base.  Again, under careful Goose supervision.

And maybe, just maybe a bit of heckling from the pooch.

This left us with a few stumps to take care of.  Colby did his best to chop them down with the chainsaw, but we still have a little bit more work to do on getting rid of them in their entirety.  For now, we’re left with some small, nubby stumps that we’re hoping will soften up and maybe rot a little over the winter and in the spring we can get rid of them for good.  Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but mostly it’s sheer laziness combined with flat-out just not wanting to deal with it right now.

It was when I snapped the following pic that I had that “whoa….what did we just do?!” moment.  You know, that moment when you do something kind of permanent, you can’t go back, and it’s kind of major.  Like chopping down all your trees/bushes around your house.  All of a sudden, we can see the front of our house and it was amazing!  Who knew our front porch was so large?!

And stump chopping round two.  Go baby, go!  For some reason, that stump scared me.  Maybe because I was painting the side of the house while straddling it and imagining myself tripping and impaling myself on it.  Great visual, huh?!  I’ve been watching too much Grey’s Anatomy.

With that, our house is officially exposed.  As much as I hate to chop down plants, in particular trees, it had to be done.  The bushes were damaging not only our windows but also our siding.  It’s really not good to have your plants growing right up the side of your house.  They really shouldn’t even be touching your house since the water damage they can do just isn’t good.  So alas, down came the trees.

Since we’re approaching winter, yeah I said it, and our first frost is looming, it’s doubtful that we’ll be planting anything this year to replace the old shrubs.  But our game plan is to try and finish buttoning up the porch windows and maybe, just maybe, refinish the porch floor and ceiling while we’re at it.  But gardening wise, I’m already scheming of planting a few more hydrangeas and surrounding the house with them.  The trio in the front of the house have done really well this year and they’re just so pretty.  But who knows.  I have three six months of winter to change my mind.

Pssst…Any plant choppings going on in your neck of the woods?  Or dog supervision/heckling?