HOME RULE is a new Hayride series about the decisions, mistakes, repairs, and small victories that come with trying to turn a house into a home.

And if you recognize the Tommy Boy reference in the title, kudos to you.

But here’s the story…

I already knew the live oak would eventually become a problem. I knew it when we moved into the house well over a year ago. But the tree was still young and small enough to make the culmination of that concern safe at a distance.

On a lot only about 42 feet wide, it would eventually grow large limbs that could reach toward and over the house, a thought which produced the very worst of images when I considered the number of hurricanes that form in the Gulf. Perhaps less frighteningly (and perhaps not), it could also provide more cover and access for those enormous tree roaches I remember waiting for me when I’d turn on my apartment light some time ago. Then there was the sidewalk, the surest-bet issue, sitting close enough to the tree that I could already imagine the concrete buckling as the roots expanded.

So when the very adept nursery man from Moon Valley Nurseries came out the other day to talk to me about my backyard and offered counsel on the live oak, quite unsolicited at that, I knew. My rookie concerns suddenly fast-forwarded to the here and now.

What I didn’t want to tackle before had been made plain. It was time.

There have been numerous other things that have needed attention, and many of them still do. Inside the house, there are rooms to organize, walls to paint, storage problems to solve, and a small bathroom whose sink area needs more functionality than the original builder-grade decision provided. Outside, there are planting beds, drainage questions, struggling plants, hardscape decisions, grass nurturing, and an entire backyard I have been working to build into something more than a gigantic rectangle.

Anyone who has bought a new house probably understands the trap. The number of possible projects begins multiplying almost as soon as the boxes are unpacked—at least the boxes that ever get unpacked, because many stay packed forever. Everything can’t be done at once, and so the homeowner starts choosing what can wait.

And I decided the live oak could wait while I hoped against hope—and I’m not kidding—that the tree would somehow be stunted in its growth, just like that dwarf magnolia twenty feet away.

There has been no such luck.

I had, in other words, based my plan on the live oak declining to behave like a live oak.

The beautiful Southern live oak is a museum piece in South Louisiana. It can grow 40 to 80 feet tall, with a crown spreading anywhere from 30 to 100 feet, depending upon its environment. The North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox describes the live oak as a magnificent shade tree for large areas, a trait that becomes important when the tree is planted on a narrow suburban lot already occupied by a two-story house, two sidewalks, utility lines, and another ornamental tree, as pitiful as that one may be right now.

Not to mention the neighbors’ homes twenty years from now when that Category 6 rolls in.

The LSU AgCenter is more direct in its caution, warning that a mature live oak can overwhelm a yard and neighboring properties while its massive surface roots damage sidewalks, curbs, driveways, and patios when planted too close. Another AgCenter discussion explains that the root system can extend two or three times beyond the tree’s dripline, noting that sidewalk sections commonly become uplifted around live oaks.

It’s a shame because the live oak is simply a majestic creation of God. Really, it is.

And maybe that was part of my hesitation too. Images of home and moss-covered oak trees…

But reason has to win out over the heart. And certainly reason has to, at some point, come into play with the new homeowner’s scheduling. The order of the projects is probably more important than the number of projects completed, especially as the months churn into years.

The immediate-gratification jobs usually tempt us first. Fresh paint changes the entire environment. A new piece of furniture adds depth. Flowers and plants provide color without requiring much work. Those things are not frivolous, and they are certainly important, but they should be momentum builders for the big ones, tangible reminders that you need to get the potentially disastrous problems taken care of.

The major project may be less enjoyable and more expensive. It may also save you from having to tear up some of that smaller work later anyway.

None of this insinuates that every concern should become an immediate emergency, especially while you’re enjoying the honeymoon phase of a new home. Sometimes the wait is practical: Sometimes a project truly must wait because the money, time, or enough information is not available.

An independent confirmation like Nursery Man changes the situation, though. And one point we are working to make today is to recognize those “Nursery Men” in your life as a new homeowner, who are perhaps little divinely sent messengers for you to move on a project whose pause time has expired.

The live oak will therefore be replaced with a white Natchez crape myrtle, which should still give the front of the two-story house the height and presence it needs without eventually acquiring the live oak’s enormous canopy and root system. The dwarf magnolia will remain, although moving it back about five feet should add some depth to the arrangement and give the two trees more room to roam.

Those are the chosen solutions for this property. The larger lesson for readers is simply that home improvement requires a hierarchy. The projects capable of damaging the house, undoing other work, or becoming substantially more expensive with time belong above the projects whose principal reward is immediate satisfaction, especially if money, time and the correct information is indeed available.

No one enjoys spending money to remove a healthy young tree, and every house probably has one such project sitting somewhere on the list. It is a particularly unsatisfying expense because, if the job is done correctly, the reward is that twenty years from now nothing happens. But when we recognize it, we should at least be willing to reorder the list.

The paint can wait. Portions of the backyard can wait.

Because the live oaks’ gnarled fingers are creeping toward your driveway.

Thank you for reading The Hayride!