Words cannot describe the beauty of it. And I kind of wish the Catholic Church had just left the bldg alone, and not move in a bunch of icons. I kind of feel the same way about the Hagia Sophia's being turned into a mosque in Instanbul. All the early Christian iconography and it's tured into a mosque.
So, this past winter really scuffed up the garden. Most of the plants are making a comeback, but some we had to replace. The area around the koi pond is looking pretty again:
The 7 tall Cabbage Palms at one of my accounts got trimmed today. I have it done once a year around mid-July, when the bloom spikes have all emerged.
This species only blooms once a year - in the middle of summer. If you leave the flower stalks on - eventually fruits are formed - and eventually the fruits drop off - and that can be a problem.
It's not easy to just remove the flower stalks by themselves without trimming off some of the fronds. So most people give the palm a haircut, removing the flower stalks and some of the fronds.
These were given a '10-2' haircut - the resulting canopy mimicking the hands of a clock at 10 and 2. A '9-3' cut is also acceptable. When you get into '11-1' territory - that severe a cut is sometime referred to as a "hurricane cut". Usually that is how they are cut when they are re-located, to relieve stress on the palm as it acclimates to it's new location. And also grows itself an entire set of new roots.
The person I hired to do the job today did one of them for me last year when the 'other' company dropped the ball - the last one in the back yard. So it's his gig now. Family man with 3 children - the 2 boys helping Dad today. He also works 2 jobs, so happy to give him the work.
Messy work and of course it was very hot today......