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adriennemb2

This one's for Yard

adriennemb2
11 years ago

The dog and I get so bored with walking the same old routes twice daily but one place that we haven't tired of yet is the renowned Research Station here in town. There's lots of limbed up trees there that just might make Yard's heart go a little pitter-patter...

Some of the more successful ones are here, although the first picture is included mainly because it's such an unusual type of tree to see pruned up like this. See if you can guess what it is without a hint.

{{gwi:46137}} {{gwi:46139}} {{gwi:46141}}

Sometimes though, things fall into the category of, "What the heck were they thinking?"

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Comments (7)

  • woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
    11 years ago

    adrienne - is the first one of cedars? They can be quite ornamental that way. A friend's daughter bought a former church a couple of years ago to convert into a house. It has some beautiful limbed up cedars on one side. Some pictures...

    I love the trunks - so sculptural...
    {{gwi:46147}}

    The line of them all - you can see that they're limbed up fairly high by seeing where the foliage is relative to the top of the truck:
    {{gwi:46148}}

    In relation to the building - they're the ones on the right side):
    {{gwi:46149}}

  • tanowicki
    11 years ago

    Limbing up taken to the extreme:
    {{gwi:46150}}

  • adriennemb2
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    I thought it was cedars too at first, must be the Canadian in us. But no.
    And lol @ tanowicki. More triffids, just not palm trees this time.
    I'd be scared to turn my back on those trees for fear that they might creep up on me...

  • PRO
    Yardvaark
    11 years ago

    Hmmm... my guess is Yew. (Since hovering on the picture inadvertently brings up the tag "Yew by adriennemb"!) The group of photos illustrates significant character and quality differences between tree trunk systems. Woody's first picture serves to illustrate the power and beauty that tree trunks are capable of... unfortunately seldom seen in the typical under-tended suburban landscape. I don't mean the mass of them, but that they are not cluttered with foliage. Tan, that is bonafide NOT pretty. Maybe in 50 years it will be a different story. Please post a follow-up!

  • adriennemb2
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Aw, that was too easy for yew, lol.

  • woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
    11 years ago

    adrienne - yew, eh? Actually that raises a question I've often wondered about... Why is it relatively common to see yews grown as trees in England, but they're almost always grown as shrubs here? I saw some pretty interesting-looking yew trees on trips to England ( especially in churchyards) and wouldn't mind having something like that in the garden. So, is there some reason why they never seem to be grown as trees here? Ink, do you know? Is there a particular variety that would be best to grow if I wanted to grow one as a tree?

  • PRO
    Yardvaark
    11 years ago

    "Why is it relatively common to see yews grown as trees in England, but they're almost always grown as shrubs here?"

    For the average Joe--who holds title to most of the property in the US and the plants thereon--landscaping and horticulture is not about understanding the underlying principles... it's about copying. People copy what they see others do but don't seem adventurous about forging beyond. Unless they see it first, they won't know to create it, or that it can be created. Second, once they know a plant to fulfill a certain role (i.e., shrub) they seem to perceive any other role as mistreatment of the plant or mis-application of knowledge about it. It seems that the definitions "tree" and "shrub" are not well defined scientifically and if they were, it might turn out that few species would be assigned to one or the other, as is now commonplace.

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