I do most of my own work in the garden, but sometimes, you have to call in the experts. Today is tree pruning day — I have two big trees that were in severe need of pruning — one leaning over the neighbors’ house (if the branches get too heavy at the ends, it makes the tree more vulnerable to splitting in a storm and falling on them), and the other growing into our garage roof. This kind of heavy-duty pruning isn’t an annual thing, which is good, because it’s pretty expensive; they say I shouldn’t need to do it again for 4-5 years.
I took the opportunity to ask the tree guys to do some additional ‘limbing up’ — removing the lower branches of the trees. This isn’t done for the health of the tree; it’s to allow more sun to shine into the garden.
In this case, I wanted more sun in two spots — over my vegetable garden (which is situated is a in a partial-sun spot between two houses, which is not ideal, but I love flowers more than veggies, so that’s the only spot I was willing to give it) and over the new greenhouse (which was also mostly in shade, which has been retarding the growth of the plants I have in there).
The vegetable garden is also a cutting garden, so all the greenery you see there is from tulips and daffodils. (They get plenty of sun before the trees leaf out, so spring bulb cutting gardens are good uses for shady spots.) Usually I just plant some veggies around them, but it’s getting crowded enough in there that I’m going to lift most of them later this week and replant the bulbs elsewhere in the garden this year.
I’ve also on occasion managed to catch the parkway pruning guys and asked them to take off a lower limb or two to let a little more sun into my garden; they’re not working for me, so all I can do is ask, but so far, they’ve always said yes. 
I love that Oak Park has all these beautiful parkway trees, but I also love roses, so it’s a constant struggle…
(No particular recommendations for tree guys — I’ve used Care of Trees and Davis in the past; a friend recommended J&S Tree Service, so that’s who’s out here today.)
