Botany 101....or The Lilac Bush adventure....or Bob the Lumberman

One of my favorite things about spring in Wisconsin (and I use the term "spring" very loosely) is enjoying all the trees and bushes that blossom. And among those, lilacs are probably my very favorite.

It seemed like all the blossoming trees were especially pretty this year, or maybe it was just because we waited so long for them.  Our lilac bushes were also very pretty, but I noticed something kind of strange about our larger lilac bush. Almost all the blossoms were around the lower edge with a few way at the top.  But the whole middle section was just green--no lilacs.  On closer inspection, we discovered that there was a totally different bush or tree growing up right in the middle of the lilac bush and pretty much crowding the lilac bush out.  So we figured that we needed to do something about that....but as we were checking things out we discovered this:

It doesn't show up real well on the picture, but there is a mama robin sitting on a nest, and she was not at all happy that we were poking around in her tree.  So we left the tree alone until the eggs had hatched and the babies had left the next.

Then began the project of trying to get the invading tree out of  there.  It was no small project--and Dad did all the grunt work while I supervised. :) The leaves of the 2 different trees were not all that different, and some of the branches were twisting around each other, so it wasn't real easy to tell which branches needed to be removed. And unfortunately  we did lose a few lilac branches by mistake.

The good news is that there were no injuries sustained during this project, and we were still on speaking terms when it was finished. The last picture shows Dad contemplating the last part of the job---the trunk of the invading tree, which was probably about 8 feet tall and about 4 inches in diameter. All his years of experience cutting down Christmas trees certainly helped here, although I think a better saw would have been even more helpful.

The bad news is that we now have a very strange looking lilac bush.

We're waiting for another nice day to do some final trimming of the tall branches. And we're hoping that there will be some new growth by next spring to fill in the bare spots.