This Is Me Maria

Our street is plagued by huge non fruiting cherry trees. While they are extremely beautiful they are also an extreme hassle. Our property was on the front lines of four of these huge beasts along with a giant maple tree and myriad of trees causing all kinds of havoc.

I am an organic eating, tree hugging, environmentalist just as much as the next crunchy Washingtonian but even this was more than I could handle. Two of the offenders were in our drive way (or what was left of it thanks to the roots) and were threatening the street, our foundation and of course the leaves and petals stuck to everything and an inordinate amount of time was spent raking and scraping and still foliage ended up all over our vehicles and inside our house.

So the only logical thing to do was remove them. While I was and am sad to see the beautiful trees go, our front yard is slowing becoming more manageable (a huge relief when the backyard and every other inch of the house is in dire need of repair). We still rake TONS of leaves from the trees on neighboring properties but our grass isn’t rotting away anymore and we no longer need two 90 gallon yard waste cans to dispose all of the debris.

I’ve had several neighbors comment on our removal of the trees, but of course all they had to do was drive by and admire them. We had to clean up after them and we would be paying for the damaged foundation and we would be paying for the broken sewer (like old my neighbor had to 10 years ago for a cool $20k). We will be paying for a new driveway that would otherwise be in great shape. Our driveway is bigger than your average driveway too, so again more money out of our pocket.

So now I would like to put some new smaller more manageable trees in their place. Some small - medium sized weeping white flowering cherry trees. I would hope to prune them and keep them from over taking every thing as these other trees were allowed to do.

I am Googling like crazy to find what I can but if you have any tips to share, it would be greatly appreciated!