I posted about an area I’ve been working on for some time that I feel is now pretty much done.  Today, I was able to go back and take some photos.  It will still need some raking and a pass with the weed trimmer, and the odd pruning of little things that got missed, but the big work is done.  You can read more about the progress here, here, here, here, and here.

Yeah, I’ve been working on this section for a while!

Here are some before and after pictures.

What used to be rows of lush lilac bushes have been reduced to mostly dead branches and stems, and many long, tall stems with nothing but a few green leaves at the top, trying to get some sunlight.

I was being pretty ruthless in what I cut; the back of the row had a lot of undergrowth of false spirea at one end, caragana at the other, and lilac suckers all over.  Much of it could be pulled right out of the ground without using pruning shears or saw.

Here is the next section’s before picture.

In this picture, I had already done some cleaning in the front rows of trees and bushes.  Here it is, after clearing the back row.

I used a bow saw to cut part of the dead tree down as well.  Some of the tiny little trees still in between are plum trees, so I wanted to keep them.  Otherwise, I took out all the undergrowth and cleaned out the remaining lilacs in the back.

In the next section, I worked my way up to an old caragana, which is as far as I’d cleaned up from the other end of the row of trees and bushes.  This next picture is from before I started on the front area with the plums.

I had cleaned up the front around the plums and linden tree, and from one side, cleared out some old lilacs and the caragana.  This is what it looks like now that the back is cleared up.

I’ve decided to keep this caragana, though it still needed to have some old trunks removed.  Like a lot of the other dead wood I removed, I was pulling some of it right out of the ground, with no need for cutting, it was dead for so long.

There are quite a few dead bits of trunk sticking up in several places that I have left for now.  I am not able to cut them flush to the ground at the moment, so I’d rather they were taller – and more visible – then cutting them only part way down.

It’ll be good to get in with the weed trimmer and a rake, but it’ll wait for cooler temperatures!

The Re-Farmer