Pruning Our Maple

Tags

arboriculturist, arborist, gardening, landscaping, maple, pruning, tree

Two years ago, Hubster over pruned the pin oak in our backyard resulting in a sun-scorched trunk (and at our first house, he over pruned an ancient oak). Although summer pruning is frowned upon, I had to trim up the bottom of our maple tree before my resident arborist got to it. Our maple is located in the front of our house, right where our front plateau slopes down to the lower plateau. It is the only tree in the front on the same plateau as our house. and was never trained or pruned so it was a bushy sphere of a tree. You couldn’t actually sit under the tree to enjoy the shade.

After checking to make sure there we no nests in the targeted branches/limbs, I trimmed off the branches that hung too low. I cleaned up the dead branches within the canopy. There were a few limbs that needed to be cut (which I trimmed, but our chainsaw was left at the cabin) to clean up the final appearance.

Now, Hubster will be able to get under the tree to mow and weed whack. We can sit under the tree and enjoy the shade. With a few more years of growth, this maple will be the perfect climbing tree.

On another note, we just discovered these four hatchlings in one of the hanging baskets on our front porch! They may be making a home in our maple tree sometime soon!

XOXO,
Young Wifey

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Wedding Guest Book

Tags

acrylic paint, family, guest book, love, painting, sisters, tree, Weddings

In November 2012, I went to Scotland to visit my sister and her wife. They were celebrating their marriage with a wedding (and today they got married in the US!). As a wedding present, I painted a large oak and with Distlefink love birds on a canvas to use as their guest book. I’ve been waiting for them to finish arranging the leaves before blogging about it. So I’ll just reblog her post. Make sure you click on the link to her post to see the finished pictures!

XOXO,
Young Wifey

Riotflower's Realm

My sister made our guest book for our wedding. After she consulted with us, she painted this beautiful canvas with a large oak and Distlefink love birds for a Pennsylvanian element. When she transported it over for our wedding, she cut the wooden frame and rolled the canvas. We pinned it back onto the frame roughly to display at the wedding.

Prior to the wedding, Honey and I couldn’t source oak leaf hole punchers, so we went with maple. The wedding tables were decorated with paper leaves in various colours and we asked guests to write something that we should always remember to be thankful for (and their name) on at least one leaf.
Guests wrote thoughtful, touching, simple, and funny things on these beautiful little records of a joyful day. After the wedding, we had these leaves sitting in a container in the spare room while the painting…

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A Father’s Day Gift

Tags

deciduous, garden, landscaping, tree, weeping cherry

On Mother’s Day, Hubster & I purchased four weeping cherry trees that had finished blooming for the season. We had a 45 minute drive home and wrapped the bottoms to protect the root balls. The day quickly turned windy and chilly and the few sparse leaves on the trees were damaged. Since then, we have had a few scorching hot days, and soaking wet days.

Weeping Cherry Tree

In one month, the trees have shown tremendous new growth, and one tree gave us a very special Father’s Day gift. Our weeping cherry has begun to bloom again!

A Father’s Day Gift

Happy Father’s Day!

XOXO,
Young Wifey

Apple Blossoms & Golden Finch

Tags

art, bedroom, birds, canvas, craft, destress, fine art, flower, flowering tree, golden finch, guest room, hobby, home decor, home making, paint, painting, postaday2011, relax, relaxation, stencil, tree

Rainy Saturday
I’ve been extremely stressed recently, on top of work, two weeks before the end of my course, my professor decided to extend the class! Can she really do that? We’ve stalled on our home projects. There are still walls to be painted and boxes to be unpacked… I often forget how much painting relaxes me. Painting canvases, not walls…  played around with the idea of flowering branches and birds. I played around with a silhouette idea, but didn’t like it for my walls. The inspiration has to hit at just the right time.

Blossom Detail

Today, while checking out a local community yard sale (during the pouring rain), I saw a cute stencil. Now, I’d never stencil flowers and birds on my walls (and I was quite harsh about the ones on the walls when we bought our first house), but I saw a cute stencil and thought that it would be great as a painting. For 25¢, you can’t go wrong.

Quickly after we got home I was playing around with the stencil. I was going to use it on my canvas, but it had three layers of stenciling craziness and the result would become a mess. So I looked at the image on the packet and used the images to guide my painting.

I rummaged through an unpacked box to find my paint brushes and acrylic paints. I kept my blank canvases handy, knowing that I’ve been itching to paint. I still need to spray it with a clear coat before Hubster hangs it on the wall. This is what I created…

Apples Blossoms & Golden Finch

This painting is perfect for my guest room, It’ll tone down the green walls and matched the bird-cage theme.

What did you do yesterday???