I know I’ve said this before but since I learned to trim trees it’s amazing how much history you can read in them. The difference between “trimmed regularly”, “trimmed yearly”, “trimmed every 5 years” and “trimmed every 20 years” is obvious and telling about how the people in charge of it relate to their world.
Then you’ve got more subtle things, like a tall tree whose lower branches are long and spindly, suggesting one owner cut them off for a better view out the window and then another owner regrew them for privacy. Or a yard where the older trees are trimmed neatly up to 8 feet or so and then go wild, and the younger trees are like that at 6 feet, as someone shorter took over their care
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