Undergrowth-clearing checklist

Things I have learned today:

- if you think you're going to throw up, you probably need to go inside, drink some water, and sit down for a few minutes before trying to pull more vines out of trees
- wellies are excellent for stomping dry, dead undergrowth to a pulp
- you are trying to free the tree--not the vine (I had to remind myself of this several times)
- if the vine won't pull free, try another bit--freeing up a small vine may release the big one you've been struggling with
- if you find a branch in the vine, free one vine branch at a time instead of yanking on the whole thing and getting more dead leaves/bark/twigs in your hair/down shirt/inside boots
- close your eyes whenn things start to fall
- when you get to the bottom of it, the tree may only be a framework of dead branches, and the fresh, shiny, alive leaves just those of smilax, wild rose and the most bizarre of all, grape vine.

I have removed most of the vines from the tree immediately behind the pond, but from the house deck it doesn't look any different yet. I still have to stomp down more of the piled undergrowth that Jose cut. It is slowly dying and drying, and should--if the rain holds off--be dry and brittle by next weekend.

I still don't know if I will keep this small--about 12 feet high?--tree. It does seem to have some life in it still--a few branches have leaves. But it has been so bent out of shape by the vines over the years, and so starved of light and life by the creepers, that most of the branches are brittle twigs. Some of the brittle twigs are pieces of vine that died there, broken from their roots at some point. They are so wound up with the real tree it's almost impossible to see which is which. Even if the tree buds all over in springtime, it may still look half-dead because of these old, decayed vines.

It is blocking the view of the most magnificent tree (rather, magnificent group of three entwined trees) in the garden. I have learned over the years that just because something is growing in the garden, you don't have to preserve it or fight it forever. If it doesn't work, if it's unhealthy, if it's too close to the house, if it's damaging something else, if you plain just don't like it, then you can move it, remove it, or cut it down to the ground and start again. (I had been struggling for weeks with the impossibly-overgrown cypress that hid the house in Fair Oaks, trying to "prune" its six-inch branches, when Jessie-the-contractor said, "why don't you just pull the things out?". Now there was common sense.)

I'll persevere and clear all the vine around the trunk of the tree. Then stand back and take another look.