Our New Sugar Maple

Earlier this fall we had to remove two very old, very tall, very pretty, and very dying ash trees from our backyard. I was bereft - there was such a horrible hole in the yard, in the sky, and in my heart.

After several weeks of me pissing and moaning about this, Amy finally threw up her hands and said, “Fine! Let’s go get a tree!” We talked a bit and decided on either a red or sugar maple. So last Sunday, we headed out to one of the big local nurseries. Alas, they didn’t have any trees onsite. We headed down to the local nursery that’s a lot closer to us (but doesn’t have the same widespread reputation) and hit paydirt (literally - everything was 25% off, so we got to buy a more mature/expensive tree!) They had several types of both red and sugar maples on-site. After an hour of thinking and debating, we decided on a lovely little Green Mountain Sugar Maple. It won’t get as big as either of the ash trees, but I think it’s going to be simply beautiful. Here it is being delivered and planted.

And here it is, looking towards the back of the yard and then towards our house.

Why yes, I do love it! It’s going to take many years to get a lot bigger, and I can’t wait to see it grow.

The Yard Keeps Growing

What an amazing yard we’ve got! While Amy has done a TON of work on it the past two years, it had good bones to start, including a load of perennials in beds all over the place. My mom has asked for a bit of a tour (rather than all the close-ups) of the yard, so without further ado…

The side of our house - Vegetable garden in side yard

Back left side of yard - Back left corner of yard

Left side of yard is hosta heaven - Roses on trellis

Perennial garden in right side of backyard

More pictures are also available over at Flickr. If you’re so inclined, you can also watch the 3-minute tour of our yard below. It’s not super-exciting, but should place a lot of the above photos in context.

The Yard from librarygrrrl on Vimeo.