Leave The Trimming Until You Decorate

 Again this year, I have been reminded of the folly of trimming the evergreens at the end of the season. As the weather continues to get cooler and we anticipate the snow there are several things that come to mind. One of the most prominent at this time is how much money families spend on evergreen to decorate with. How many times have you paid to have a landscaper come and trim back the pine trees and the arborvitae hedges in September after a full year of growth?

We then get ready to decorate for the Holiday Season, right? Well, let’s think about this. We are paying to have our yard and trees trimmed and cleaned up for the fall. Then, we go and spend more money on buying roping for the deck railings and make a nice evergreen arrangement for the table and maybe even decorate the mantel. Now, had we just thought about this maybe we could have saved ourselves enough money to buy our Holiday Feast and still had great decorations for the table.

Many of us have huge pine trees or spruces in our yards or in someone else’s yard very near to us or even hanging over in our yard. Well, let’s make the best of the situation. Take out the clippers and take a few bows here and there and voila! you have greens to decorate with and that pesky branch will not hit you in the face when you mow the first time in the spring. Now, the lady down the street has a Holly bush that has gotten out of control? Well, let’s just take those handy dandy clippers down and knock on her door. Ask politely if you could take a few sprigs off of the back of her Holly and I would be willing to bet that the answer will be, “yes, take whatever you want.” Now, wasn’t that easy?

Even better, as you go to pick out your tree at the cut-your-own -tree stand or farm, check the side of the road. I can almost bet that along your route there will be several opportunities to jump out with those handy dandy clippers and get some nice winter berry or greens from cedar that grow along the road. There are several places along routes 20, 173, 5 in either direction where I have trimmed politely. The trees do not suffer as long as you use sharp clippers and don’t rape the tree.

I do hope that my blogs are helpful, if not humorous. I enjoy the outdoors and I am sure there are those of you that don’t but doesn’t saving money make you think about this at least? Oh, go ahead and try it, if nothing else you can work out one less half hour at the hot gym because you took a walk on the “wild side”.

Best of luck to everyone that tries. It does become a game if you let it.