Trying Hard to Love a Tree

The trees that the absentee owner planted (the 6, 25' trees ) on the short eastern wall of his yard are not to blame for my loss of vegetable garden, and I shouldn't hate them. Nor should I hate my neighbor. Nor should I pray for the death of the trees.

But that vegetable garden was important to me, and so were the raspberries which are likely now in too much shade, and I'm taking the loss hard.

This owner is a privacy nut. He bought a house whose back yard is overlooked by two story houses in the next block and spent a fortune on an illegal wall and on these six trees. The neighbors whose back patios are now totally shaded by the wall have apparently not complained, and I don't think I can complain. If you have invested in solar panels your neighbor can't plant trees that will shade them, but if it's just that you want sun in your garden (no money invested) that's tough luck.

Now that the trees are leafing out, it's become clear that they will cast even more shade than I had imagined when they were planted in November. And it appears that they are Aspens, which means that they will double in height.

They shade my sitting patio, and the tiny leaves make a lovely, soothing sound when they quake, as I discovered this afternoon. But there will be fewer tomatoes from my tiny yard this year, and I'm sad.