Ken's green thumb isn't limited to the contents of his new sunroom. Walking up to his front door, I was immediately taken by the braided redbuds lining the walk.

"Did you sculpt them yourself or buy them that way?" I asked.

He shrugged off the beauty of the trees, explaining that the technique had merely been a way of saving the redbuds from the ax. "My wife didn't like the way they were hanging over the walk," he explained. "She wanted me to cut them down...so I braided them instead."

When asked for tips on sculpting trees, he suggested trying redbud or beech. "The trunks will grow together as they mature," he noted. I wonder what the trees will look like fifty years after their reprieve?

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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