Treeson

i think i may be a bad person, because i'm trying to figure out how to bump off a tree. Now, before all you hippies, wiccans and Druids freak out on me, let me explain...

when Stephen bought the townhouse, back in 2005, we both thought the tree was charming; it was large and leafy and wonderfully shady. it turns out, 4 years later, that it's quite a bit too leafy and shady. being a sycamore, it drops leaves for ten months out of the year making our walkway and patio look like The Land Of Eternal Autumn and completely blotting out the meager amount of sunlight, our mausoleum of a home gets, in the one window we have. The tree also makes it impossible to keep a garden in bloom for any amount of time, as both the blanket and canopy of leaves stop everything but moss from growing. it also leaves a wonderfully slimy green coating on our patio under the never abating leaf carpet. Swamp Thing kinda green, people.

So, the huz and i decided to find out what it takes to take down a tree in an outer-borough of New York City. i'll be honest, i expected the "pass-the-buck" method of bureaucracy, so i was totally fine with talking to multiple people and explaining the sitution. On a lark, i started with 311 (NYC's "information services") and was told to call Staten Island Forestry Services who, in turn, told me to call the Staten Island Office of City Planning, where i left a voicemail for some clerk to call me back....and they did! it turns out, that regardless of the fact that the tree is on our private property, it can't be taken down unless it's sick or diseased or dead. period. end of story, right? wrong.

while i was making my calls to various city agencies, the huz was at home doing the same thing (while he was supposed to be studying and doing his homework). also, as expected, he got the complete opposite answer: "it's your tree, on your property, do whatever the fuck you want with it". so now, we're at an impasse.

a very dark, dank and leaf blanketed impasse.

a few people have suggested killing the tree using methods such as hammering two nails on either side of the tree and hooking up an industrial flashlight battery to the nails to electrocue the thing to death or bleaching the soil around the roots. neither method is, particularly, tasteful to me 'cuz, while i'm no "tree hugger" i do have a heart and believe that the tree is a living thing and that that's plain old murder for murder's sake since i don't need the wood to, say, build a house or make toothpicks or something. also, "arborcide" carries a $15,000 fine, in NYC if you're caught; and, if someone turns you in, they get a reward. so, yeah, murder is out.

another person suggested just having it removed and not worrying about it...till we go to sell the house and it's existence appears on the blueprints and both the city, the lawyers and the buyers inquire as to where the tree went; this suggestion wasn't even a consideration for me, by the way. i may not be an angel, but that's bad business.

now, we have no idea what to do with the Jolly Green Giant on our meager little lawn, i'm wondering, if removing all the branches and leaving only a trunk is still considered "pruning". honestly, this whole thing has me...stumped.