After breakfast I decided to prune the Palo Verde severely – it was very looking very ratty, and I’d taken note of some similar trees during one of our drives over the last few days and realised that this particular species of tree looks pretty good if it is kept in check.

I got out the ladder and really went to town, working my way around the trunk about three times, limiting the stupid branches that are growing in the wrong direction, and pulling in the crown by about 30%. I was concerned that I was chopping off most of the fingers that were showing the signs of new growth, but I went ahead anyway.

I think it was sensible. There’s still a lot of new growth on the tree, but it looks a lot better – almost perfect in profile from our back porch. If you go around the side of the house you can see from that angle that the poor tree is actually leaning over about 20 degrees from true, but all my efforts to straighen it have been for nothing. That’s just the way it wants to grow now.

In the afternoon we shopped for votive candle holders and did a little more research regarding table decoration for the pre-wedding dinner thingy, then stopped off at Home Depot for a new Vinca plant for the garden. The cats had successfully destoyed the last one, but we wanted to try again.

I spent a number of hours sitting in the back yard, eating lunch and toasting in the sun. In fact, that (lack of) activity coupled with the pruning earlier has resulted in a touch of sunburn. Dumb!