Bottlebrush trees

G and I went out to the garden this morning to tag trees that we wanted to talk to our favorite arborist about removing, mostly because they were probably squirrel-planted (lots of live oaks and privets), plus several bottlebrush trees that will give us room to move the fence out.  I am a bit sorry to be removing the bottlebrush trees at this time of year, as they're absolutely covered in their bottlebrushy blooms, and standing next to a tree you can hear a great deep 'HUMMMMMMMM' from all the bees gathering nectar.  It's pretty nifty -- I didn't have much time to check out the phenomenon earlier because I had a meeting to get back in for, but I hope to go out there later while the sun is out to watch the bees.

What the photo shows is 2 bottlebrush trees; we may remove the one on the right because it's crowding the cedar on the far right but keep the one on the left.  Unfortunately I think just about all of the other bottlebrushes will have to go because they're in the section that will become back yard (and so will be replaced by fruit trees, bushes, beds, maybe a beehive, etc.), or are impeding the passage of tall vehicles going into our driveway.  But for now I'm enjoying seeing Mother Nature at work. :-)

It's also rose-blooming time, so I'm slowly finding out what color the four roses in my front yard are.  The previous owner of our house seems to have adored the color pink; the house was painted pink and the back patio floor and gate were pink.  Not only that, but I'm finding that most things that she'd planted that bloom are pink, too -- geraniums, naked ladies, flowering bushes, etc.  I'm sure that if bottlebrushes could be pink instead of red, they would have been, and if I waited for the ancient bougainvillea to bloom that it would also be that same shade of pink.

So three of the four roses have bloomed so far, and the colors are:  pink, white with pink edges (like Double Delight, but more pink than red, and with no scent), and white with a faint pink tinge to the petal tips.  Well, at least I can say that for the most part (there's one yellow daisy bush -- probably a volunteer!) our front yard is inherently color-coordinated, even if in sort of a matchy-matchy way, as they say.

I read a gardening article just today noting that this time of year, through early summer, is bird nesting season (see my previous post!), and so to consider this when planning to remove trees.  I'll make sure I chat with the arborist about timing, and checking for nests -- see if there are some changes that we should try to postpone until midsummer.

Of course, if the changes involve squirrel-nesting trees...maybe we should do that now, before they get going... :-P