In 1998 we bought a house in the beautiful tropical paradise of the Goldcoast. It had been a rental property for many years surrounded by a patchy and weedy area of uncared for lawn. It was a challenge and we started creating a tropical oasis. First plants to go in were the majestic and stately Alexander Palms. They would create shade for the under story of ferns and other shade loving, tropical plants.
That was 15 years ago. Look at them now. They have become towering giants. They are so HIGH they look down on our two-story house and drop their huge fronds onto all the ferns and other plants they were put in to protect. They produce thousands of seeds that drop and then grow in the fertile soil of the garden. They create a lot of work.
Sadly the time has come to say goodbye to these tropical beauties.
Enter Big Jim and his team of skilled arborists.
With spiked shoes and a strap around the trunk, Guy shimmies up to the top of the palm and makes short work of demolishing these giants. Look carefully at the bottom of the photo and you will see the roof of our 2 story home.
In less than an hour Jim and his team had demolished 5 palms, one tree-fern and a decaying Ivory Curl tree. Leaving the garden open to more sunlight and me with the job of relocating a number of plants that all of a sudden had the wrong growing conditions.
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Sue of “A word in your ear” opens her dictionary each week to find a word to challenge us with. This week it is HIGH. How appropriate for me as today we had these very high palms cut down.
Well that was a quick change for you, it will be fun once again playing chess with your plants, good to catch up with you yesterday.
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Yes the garden is an on going work in progress
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Nature outwits us every time, doesn’t it? Amazing size of those palms! 🙂
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Yes it was a pity really that they had to come down, but I never thought they would grow that tall when I planted them
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Beautiful choice for the challenge, Pommepal.
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Thanks Ad
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Let the sunshine in PP 🙂
Palms are a lot nicer than the leylandii we see a lot of over here which can become a real cause for neighbour disputes
A garden make over then what fun 🙂
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Well more like a corner make-over Poppy, but planning to put some flowering perennials that like sun in that spot
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Meets the brief nicely PP – can’t wait to see how you re-configure your lovely garden,
Jude xx
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G’day Jude, yes gardening is a never ending, changing environment and the plants will soon let you know if they are not happy.
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Great entry for the theme, i love seeing a glimpse of your life.
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Thanks Dawn, the challenge fitted in with our life nicely this week so I could take a record of those lovely palms before they went.
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Things happen for a reason.
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