Back to life

Coming back to Life

In August, 2022, we had to take the painful decision to cut our much beloved, 7 year old, 50 foot tall, singleton mango tree due to the pressure it was exerting on the Haystack compound wall. (Lesson learnt by a newbie 'farmer' - plant mango trees far away from walls; easier said that done when you have a postage stamp sized plot of land)

After two months of pretending to be a dead stump, Ye Old Faithful exploded back to life with around 7 new shoots.

This time around, we have to be careful to not let it grow above wall height. Will be an interesting experiment to see how the tree will react to constant pruning of her top branches.

(The single magenta flower peeping out is from an impatiens wallerina plant that we propped up in a small "V" between the cut branches.)

(The cutting of the tree was an event in itself. Thought that such a huge tree would require multiple hands and a chain-saw. It was done in less than 30 minutes by a single gentleman wielding a large curved scythe. He appeared on the scene, casually clambered up on the tree itself and started hacking away in the most unscientific manner imaginable, with apparently no concern for his own safety or the way the huge branches would break and fall. As a family, we watched in horror, waiting for the trunk to come crashing down on either him, Haystack or the neighbouring house; miraculously, the whole process ended without disaster and we were all mightily relieved. 

Another note to any reader of this article who might be tempted to grow big trees; disposing off the cut branches and trunk is a whole procedure in itself (at least in Bangalore) requiring the cooperation of your local municipal authorities. We managed to do this only after 2 weeks of the tree cutting exercise. In the meantime, you might be stuck with huge pieces of wood that are bigger than your house - so think thrice before growing trees that might need cutting at a later date.)