All I can say and all I can think of is: "See pic. below and remember!!"--said, in true form of
any wife watching you swaying in those tree tops!!! :/ YIKES!!!

{{gwi:1105643}}

Yes, my dear bride was taking the photos and grumbling the whole time.

I do indeed reflect on that fall and recovery, which taught me a lot about my body, my family, my doctors and life in general. I recovered over the 90+ days in extreme pain by laying in a hammock with my bad arm hanging over my head (for proper blood flow out of the swollen wrist) and admiring the gardens.

So I do take precautions and keep a balance in life.

Hard to believe I just spent 6+ hours in the garden on Dec 20: 55 degrees, supposed to go down to 13 above zero and cold rain/snow in next 24 hours.

Tar paper wrapped a few fragile Japanese maples, repotted 10 small banana plants that hadn't made it yet into pots, pruned a bunch of small trees, cut 12 bunches (20 each) of hybrid poplar 10-15 " tips - free to good home, you pay the postage.

Put plastic tree protectors around a few rare trees, killed slugs, pulled weeds, just like June 15!

Will bring the last brugmansia pots back into basement garage at sundown, before wind and rain arrive from the west!

I can't believe you're up there hanging on that skinny little tree! You could have hired a small plane to fly low over your backyard and top all the trees . . . .while you watched from the back porch. Or tied a tourniquet at the 20' desired level. Won't it develop a bushy-haired-man appearance by topping?

I am careful - the trees were strong enough.

I also had some precision issues with where these tops fell, which was another reason I wanted to top them at the lower heights. I have some Japanese umbrella pines underneath which are very finicky and fragile, which I didn't want to break or damage. only one small branch hit by the top.

It will continue growing fast and need pruning, again one of the drawbacks of its fast growth habit.

are you nuts???

its winter!!!!! .. i built a luge on the driveway for the kids .... with both feet planted on the ground... zero right now.. with wind taking it to a balmy -7F ... with a foot of snow on the ground ...

ken

White landscape here. I want to prune my Japanese maple before we leave on vacation but that's the extent of my winter outside work!

We are at -10 degrees with a foot or more of that white fluffy stuff on the ground and it's blowing all over.

Connie

Ken, I always try and take advantage of Dec-Jan days that are warm enough with no wind to do the heavy midwinter pruning of my trees and shrubs.

Have a friend with three huge apple trees that haven't been pruned in years - he offered apples for pruning, so we have eaten the apples, now need the pruning. Maybe next warming snap next weekend?

Working outdoors in the limited sunlight of mid-winter has been one of the regional differences I have enjoyed since leaving Michigan in 1974, for Virginia, Delaware Illinois, Delaware and now back to Virginia. Our five years in Chicagoland taught us what real winter can be, especially 1978-79 and 1979-80!

Today 35 mph winds howling, blue sky and +35 for high, +15 for a low here in the mountains of southwestern Virginia.