a panorama image of gasworks park, looking south over south lake union. the day is sunny, the lake is calm, and the path lays at your feet

Musings and Mumblings

A Sad Tale About A Tree

by: Rey, Sat, Aug 02, 2025

Blaugust, gardening, power tools

Today, for this second Blaugust post, we have The Ballad Of The Damn Tree and The Stubborn Woman.

The trunk of a Japanese maple tree, planted into a slope behind a retaining wall. the tree looks healthy, has red and green leaves, and the branches extend out of the frame and over the height of the fence it's next to. — Before it all went wrong.

Another shot of the maple, this time from further back, so you can see the retaining wall (stone, a bit more than knee-high), and the small bleeding-heart plant that was planted in front of it. — Before it all went wrong.

So, my backyard. It's the first one I've ever had, and it's been a bit of a struggle to keep it sorted and sane. Back in 2019 or so, I decided that I was going to clean it out after a couple of years of literally no one tending it at all. It was a massive pile of bindweed, a volunteer chestnut tree we literally had to pay someone to remove for us, when we finally noticed it, as it got tall enough to see from our second floor, and this DAMN shrub that just... tried to eat everything. Everything.

A broad, unkempt shrub, about two feet high with long floppy branches and big broad leaves growing in radial bunches. It is planted not far from the edge of the retaining wall, and hangs over it greatly. — I don't know what it was, I just know I wanted it gone, and made it happen. Also pictured on the left - the volunteer chestnut, probably courtesy of the neighborhood squirrels.

You'll notice there, that the maple is jammed into a corner of fence on it's east and north, the house on it's south, and townhomes all around. It wasn't getting a ton of light, there, to say the least. So, When the tree-folks came in to remove that chestnut, we also had them do some cleanup on the hemlock and cedar trees that are also up on that slope. They provide a decent privacy screen, but the limbs can get to be a lot, so keeping them contained is well worth the money. Anyway, with the reduction in coverage from over the top, the maple got sunburnt. A whole bunch of leaves curled up and shriveled off, and it generally threw an impressive temper tantrum, that resulted in some dead limbs.

Now, here's where Rey, stubborn idiot, starts to play into things. I knew the dead wood should come off. I needed to prune back a limb that was hanging over the fence over the neighbors car, too. I... didn't own any tool that could make this happen, beyond like, a hand-pull hack saw. I am very much a "I can do it myself" person, though, and dead wood breaks pretty easy, so, I just leaned on branches that looked iffy till they snapped off in my hand! Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

That seemed to work in the short term, but the tree kept declining. every year, another dead limb, more shriveled leaves, more temper tantrum. I kept snapping off the dead bits. Which led to this last weekend, when I hopped up there to pull out a whole HOST of bindweed, and took a closer look at the current state of The Tree. What I found wasn't great.

a piece of tree, where a branch had torn a wound between it and the trunk, letting in water and pathogens. the space inside the break looks rotted and eroded. — I took this after I'd chopped this part down, but I'm pretty sure this was the point where it all went wrong.

It seems that in the course of breaking off dead limbs, I'd accidentally opened a gap in the tree's defenses without noticing it, and water and some sort of pathogen had taken advantage of the opportunity. So, I thought, maybe I just need to cut off that limb (it was above a significant split in the trunk). And... it just got worse.

The cut part of the maple, after the large rotting limb had been removed. The wood is discolored dark brown, black, and tan, as opposed to the nearly white healthy wood, almost the entire diameter of the limb — Well, that sure doesn't look healthy. Lets cut again!

Same tree trunk, this cut is lower still and at an angle, to try to remove the rotting section. It was obviously unsucessful, as a large patch of damaged tree is still visible. — Well, that sure doesn't look healthy. Lets cut again!

And worse. And Worse. Earlier this summer, I'd invested in a 6" mini-chainsaw (aka a pruning saw), and that was saving my butt during this. It made my attempted intervention, and the eventual result both a lot easier. And thus the end of the maple.

But not the end of my woes, of course not! I am a stubborn idiot, and now, not only am I a stubborn idiot with a tree stump in my yard, but I have power tools. ...Kind of. I did a bit of googling, confirmed it was possible to dig a stump out, and grabbed my shovel. "How bad could it be?" I asked myself. The first day, I got this far:

a tree stump, with a small depression dug around it. It's very obvious the rootball extends beyond where the hole has been dug, at about 6 — A fine start to a stubbornness war.

And then the weekend was over, and I had shit to do, and algae to wage war on, and so it sat for the week, till yesterday. I came out with a fully charged chainsaw battery, a shovel, and a willingness to end up covered head to toe with dirt, to prove I was smarter, stronger, and better than a hunk of wood that didn't realize it was dead, yet. I started cutting off roots as I found them, with the pruning saw, and then when that battery ran out, with my gardening loppers. And then I got the blade jammed in a root. The handles had already been feeling a little wobbly, a little creaky, but when I tried to free them, from their rooty prison, well...

a view down into the tree stump hole. a pair of long-handled garden pruning loppers is sticking straight out of the hole, with only one handle attached to it. — Oh, THAT'S what all that creaking was about...

A hand in a leather work glove holds the handle to the loppers, nothing attached to it. — Oh, THAT'S what all that creaking was about...

So, I decided that I would listen to what the world was telling me, and go in for the evening, and that's where we stand, now. A friend has sent me a link to her "stump-guy", she says it'll be like 10 mins work for him, which sounds great, but also... I almost won! Just before this, I swear I got it to move! Really! It would be like I had loosened the jar of jam for someone I had asked for help opening the jar!

The hole around the stump, which has grown considerably. It's maybe a foot deep now, and many points where roots used to be are visible. The dirt is piled up all around the hole. — A Détente.

And so, this's where we sit, for now. Glaring at each other. It mocks me, and my weakness. But my battery is re-charged, and it is a new day...