All play and no work

A dress code for trees

A year after moving into our Maui home, I was persuaded to join the HOA board. Some friends sympathized; others wondered if I was running a fever.

A year later, I’m neither sorry for myself nor nauseous. As boards go, ours is careful and business-like. As neighborhoods go, ours is friendly, safe, and easy-going. (Cue “knock on wood” sound effect.)

However: It turns out our CC&Rs limit the height of front-yard trees! What?

This rule had escaped us until the board decided to publish a newsletter before the annual homeowners meeting. The newsletter consisted of kindly phrased reminders, e.g., hide your trash can, mow your lawn, don’t park on the street overnight…and front yard trees can reach only as high as your roofline.

**Given their iconic stature in the tropics, palm trees are free to grow as tall as they wish. 🤙🏼

Our pink trumpet tree blooms for months on end and decorates our front lawn with sweet-smelling lavender blossoms. Mynahs, cardinals, and even peach-faced lovebirds perch in it and sing for mates. For the first time, we noticed that it towered far above our roofline.

Very likely, our neighbors would not have turned us in. Nonetheless, we decided our trumpet tree could use a trim.

Taona returns

We called Taona Fiederer-Sheppard, our gentle coco palm trimmer. (See my previous post: https://laurasplace.blog/2024/01/28/a-gentle-mans-coco-harvest/.) Two days later, he arrived with his smile, his skills, and his love of trees.

Strapping on his safety rope, Taona climbed the sturdy central trunk, leaving his small chainsaw on the ground. From there, he acquainted himself with the tree’s structure and, together, we identified the first two cuts.

Taona started with a small pruning saw to check out the hardness of the wood. Medium dense, he reported. Switching from one hand to the other, he sawed the two main trunks, each about 6 inches in diameter. He gently lowered the limbs to the ground, controlling them with a rope.

From there, we looked at the next cuts, continuing to reassess. Above or below that fork? Leave that limb alone or shorten it?

When do we stop? Neither of us wanted the flat-top look of the urban parking lot. And the tree could handle only so much loss and still retain its health.

Taona was a partner in decision-making, listening to my outside view and speaking from the heart of the tree.

Taona’s chainsaw stayed on the ground unused, as branches piled up around it. Instead of the roar of the power tool, I (and our neighbors) heard only the quiet rhythm of the hand saw and Toana’s voice as he sang and talked to the tree.

Near the end of the job, a slender branch lashed Taona in the back and hooked his tool belt. “She’s starting to get pissed off,” he smiled down at me.

Taona is not a certified arborist, but he is well trained, highly skilled, and fully equipped. But what matters most to us is that he truly loves trees.