Monkey Puzzle Tree

Little did we know what a prize we had when we moved into our house.  Towering over our front yard and roof (and sidewalk to boot) was a 50+ foot monkey puzzle tree.
While we did not love the tree, we figured it was sorta cool being that it had some history behind it.  The Monkey Puzzle Tree comes from Chili originally and was brought to Portland for the 1905 Lewis and Clark World Fair.  Pretty cool, eh?  Now these trees are gorgeous in the wild as seen below (image from here)

and are also really pretty when they are young trees or well-maintained.  valuable too; I have seen 12" starts at local nurseries for around $40.

this image from here

But ours was well, old and well, not pretty.  Kinda the sore thumb sticking out. Not that our landscape was well, landscape.  More just some concrete, shrubs and dead grass

The old monkey just engulfed the house.  So we were wondering what to do about it.  Cool tree but not looking so hot anymore.  Well, after a wind storm knocked a branch off onto the sidewalk, we knew we had to do something.  This was winter '07/'08.  The branch easily weighed several hundred pounds and would have killed anyone in its path.   The branches are spiny and sharp and can cut someone as well.
After having about 10 arborists out to give there verdict, we decided that it was time to cut the beast down.  Many arborists' said it was not healthy and had probably 5-10 years of life left as it was nearly 100 years old (after we cut it down we counted 96 rings, meaning 96 years old-just after the lewis and clark exposition) which probably meant that it was planted right when the house was built.  If we kept it, it would need a dead heading right away so that it was safe and dead branches would not continue to fall and possibly kill people.  Well, being that it was as much to dead head as cut the beast down, we decided that it was best to bring the king down.  We also were planning a full re-landscape in summer 2009 and the beast was not part of the plan.
However, we are eco-friendly people and the thought of just grinding and dumping the beast (gorgeous wood) was gnawing at our conscious-es.   So, I was able to find a company that came and harvested most of the trunk once we cut it down and even paid us a couple hundred as well!
Here are pictures of the beast coming down in Fall 2008.  It took a crew of four all day, and don't worry, all the wood that was ground (branches) were taken to the local wood recycler for re-use.

 

After it was all gone, the yard looked bare, but we were breathing a sigh of relief, and well, in my style, dreaming and talking of the next project...landscape (see here, here and here).
And my dad stole a little piece of stump (thanks for being sneaky) to make us this cool picture frame for Christmas 2009

 We even saved a couple pieces of the stump that we think will be cool to make something with someday-end tables???   Of course, they have now been outside for about 2 1/2 years so will need a good sanding, leveling and maybe some shellac on the top?  Luckily, they have been kept pretty dry so may even be pretty dry by the time we are ready to do a project with them.  Maybe put them in the retro 40s-50s basement when we remodel...that could be pretty dreamy :)

for now they make great old bike tire and rake storage

super cool lines where the branches grew out of the trunk

Did I mention that we are still reaping the "rewards????" of the beast?  When digging the hole for the japanese maple we planted in place of the beast or reigning king, we came across a 8-10" diameter root.  Digging that up was a bi-atch-pretty much broke a chain saw in the process. Also, we really fun to go around it when laying pipe for the sprinkler system.

Front Yard Landscape Progress

We decided it's time for landscape. Here is our picture just before my brother, Ryan so generously spent his entire weekend helping us dump heaps of grass and concrete that Steve took out while I partied in NYC. In addition, Ryan (the genius landscape architect) designed a sprinkler system and helped us shop for parts as well as dig treacherous trenches (do we have rock or do we have rock in our yard, you stop every 2 T. of dirt you dug to pull out a rock ranging from 2-12" in size-ahhhH) that you seemingly fill several minutes after you finish digging because all you have to do is stick some 1/2" PVC inside. Anyways, we finished all the sprinkler work just an hour before Ryan flew home with the exception of one part and hooking it up to the plumbing...we still have aching muscles and blisters to show for the work. More pictures to come soon.

Outside Before-2006/2007

Here are a few pictures of our home before we started the outside renovation 2 years ago, it's still not finished but it's getting close-we hope to fix the porch stairs and finish some shingle and detail work this summer. Also, my brother (who is a landscape architect in Los Angeles-score!) will be coming ini June to design our front yard scape!

Pictures include:
1. House Prior to move-in-note aluminum siding (Fall 2006)
2. Removing aluminum siding-gotta love all those lead paint chips falling (Summer 2007)
3.Stripping paint off of side board and prepping to remove all shingles and replace-we completed all of the paint stripping, shingle replacement and prep and then hired the painters
4. back of house before shingle work began
5. Just before paint began, notice crumbling chimney, new side board where we adjusted height of window and new shingles that we hand nailed....me not so happy after spending most of our summer evenings doing work (October 2007)