And Then There Were None!

Darren lives two doors up from us.  For a living he has a tree removal business which specializes in removing palms.  Darren has his good weeks along with his quiet weeks. I thought I would catch him this morning and see if was able to remove our two palms in readiness for concrete to be laid before we went to Melbourne later next week.  If I got them done before I went it would mean less mucking around when we got back.

He was unable to do it early next week so I said I would see him when we got back from Melbourne in mid September.

10 minutes later there was a knock on the front door.  His job for today had cancelled at the last moment so he asked did I want to help him remove the palms this morning.  We decided to do it.

This photo above shows how we prepared the pool and the surrounds because with the grubber (to remove the tree roots) there would be quite a mess.  It didn't take long before the first of the two palms was down.

Click on all photos for a larger view.

I carried the fronds out to his truck at the front of the house while Darren got to work with his chain saw.  Majestic Palms are especially moist inside so bits of palm were flying everywhere as the chain saw did its job.

One thing we have discovered with palms is the absolute network of surface roots they have.  So I asked Darren to give the whole area a going over with the 'grubber' to cut up as many of the roots as possible.  Gary the concreter would be digging the area out by hand so every little bit Darren could do to cut up the root system would make it easier for him.

Dust and debris flew everywhere.  Everything was covered in dust.  Previously I had removed 90% of the tan bark and scattered it on the small front garden.

The biggest job was tidying up afterwards.  There was dirt and dust everywhere, there was tree pith all over the fence.  Darren and I carefully removed the 'tarp' from the pool and took away a lot of mess with that.  We started at around 8:30 am and it was all finished by 11:30.

I will sleep very well tonight. I will have a booking with the Chiropractor early next week!