An elm and a thank you!

I would like to give a HUGE thank you to Catherine at The Shiny Pebble for today's so very generous and amazing post on me and All things paint and plaster...

I am humbled! (Honestly, I've never seen such a big picture of myself!)

Catherine, you have a talent with words.  Again, thank you.

When I visit the Netherlands for family get togethers, I am always amazed at these "stumps" of trees that one observes all over the country. As explained by my significant other, quite simply, the trees need to be pruned. 

Because the Dutch love to garden, but live on small parcels of land (the Netherlands is a one of the most densely populated countries), they have become expert pruners. They never use the good old American start-your-engines wackers! They prune by hand, figuring out what they want the tree/plant to look like and pruning so that the growth goes in the preferred direction. 

Would you ever dream that our just-pruned weeping elm would even survive this major pruning, much less grow and thrive? It is now 13 years old and receives this haircut yearly.

Look at the downspout- the big hail storm did that!

Now watch it grow!

April 29th

May 4th

May 27th

This photo is not from my own tree. I have searched my computer and can't locate the photo! I'll photograph our tree again in full growth to update this post. Our elm will look like this, but more narrow, as its space to live in is only five feet wide.

credit

Thank you to Cindy from My Romantic Home for inviting us in for Show and Tell Friday.