Trees in my Landscape

As I look out my window today the ground is a tapestry of beige, green and white. The meadow grasses have died back, but the lawn is a brilliant green because it has loved this long cool, but not frozen, autumn and there are still patches, large and small, of the snow that keeps tantalizing us. Winter may be coming, but it is shy this year, stepping out and then retreating.

The winter garden can be a challenge for gardeners, but today I am looking at the trees in my landscape. Two are particularly important to me. Right next to the Cottage Ornee is an ancient apple tree. Even when we first moved here over the 30 years ago, the tree had been damaged. The main trunk had begun to rot and to hollow out. By the time we had young grandsons there was enough room to allow them to slide down the interior of the trunk from the tree house to the ground. I want you to know we did not encourage this pasttime, but their mischief did not seem to damage the tree.

Over the years it has lost two great sections to ice. Again and again we thought irreparable damage was being done, but the apple tree carries on, blooming every spring, dropping immature fruit on the metal roof of the Cottage all summer and giving me enough apples for applesauce every fall. In the winter it is a veritable sculpture.

The other tree stands alone in a field to the west of the house. This is an old yellow birch, with a graceful spreading shape. This tree is noble  in every season and every weather. I have taken hundreds of photos of it veiled with the earliest spring green, throwing deep shade in summer, nearly hidden in autumnal mists, and a crystal vision, encased in winter’s ice and frost.

October 18, 2011

We have planted trees for our daughters and grandchildren. For the girls we chose lindens (Tilia cordata) but they have not faired well. Only our daughter Diane’s linden, and her daughter Caitlin’s remain, both have suffered greatly, but so far these two are surviving. I enjoy lime flower tea which is actually made of linden flowers. Every winter I promise myself I will harvest the small fragrant linden flowers but so far I have not done so. Next spring I am sure I will absolutely pay attention to bloom and harvest time.

We planted gingko trees in the Lawn Beds for our five grandsons, in their honor, but also in memory of our China sojourns. One of the five trees did not last long, but the other four have done well over the past 13 years. The boys are growing tall, but not as tall as their trees. Those trees do remind us of how quickly time passes, and how brief is childhood.

People always ask me about the foul smelling fruit ginkgos produce. We have not had to worry about this, and probably never will. First you need to have male and female ginkgos; at the moment we do not know the sex of our trees. In addition, the female trees do not bloom or produce fruit until they are mature, which we think will be sometime after our time on this earth.

Recently I wrote about the Harvard Forest. Since then I have been paying more attention to my own woodland. At the edge of our west field is a white pine woods. I knew that the pines had crept east into a southern slope that is not really visible from the house, but all of a sudden I realize that the pines are also creeping east and north. Soon I will have an ever larger ‘old field white pine’ forest.

After getting snowed in a couple of times during our early days at the end of the road we took the advice of our elderly neighbor Mabel Vreeland and planted a snowbreak along the road. The oldest of those trees, mostly white pine, but with a few Scotch pine and balsams, are now over 25 years old. We admire them from our dining table window, and give thanks for them all winter long. The road crew appreciates them too. No longer do winters snows drift six feet deep over the road.

We purposely over planted so that we would be able to take out our Christmas tree every year. This has resulted in some Charlie Brown Christmas trees, but we think ours all have an inner beauty, even if it is not apparent to others.

I think trees are an important part of our domestic landscape. They can offer shelter and food for birds, cooling shade for our house in summer, and protection from the wind in winter. It just takes a little planning.

What about the trees in your landscape? Do you have a grove? A ribbon of trees between your and your neighbor? Do you have a magnificent specimen? Do your trees carry you back in memory, and into thoughts of a hopeful future?

Will you plant a special tree in 2012? Many trees grow faster than you think, but don’t put off planting your tree. Plant memories and hope this year.

Between the Rows   December 17, 2011

December Dawns

December 21, 2011

December 21, 2011

December 23, 2011

For more skies, visit Skywatch Friday.

Skies and Reflections

Gray skies 12-6-11

A gray day with gray skies,

Deerfield River

and silver reflections.

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Winterberry – Ilex verticillata

Winterberry 11-7-11

It was Martha Stewart who first introduced me to winterberry, a native deciduous holly. Since it was Martha who pointed it out in an arrangement I thought it must be exotic, and not something I could grow.  I was wrong.

I did buy and plant five winterberry plants this spring, four female ‘Winter Red,’ and one male ‘Southern Gentleman’, but this photo is of a clump of winterberry growing by the side of the road. Those roadside shrubs are in a damp spot which gives me hope that my new plants will survive even though the weather has been wet and strange  all this season.

It is a joy when a plant like this is a native that supports the native wildlife and is beautiful in  the garden.

Bridge of Flowers Season Ends

October 31, 2011

We don’t usually have snow at the end of the season, but it has been a remarkable and difficult year with extraordinary weather. I think the Bridge is ready for a rest.

See you on April 1, 2012.

Monday Report March 14

Entry and Welcoming Platform

This is an end-of- winter Monday Report. Next Monday it will be Spring. The temperature this am is 32 degrees and we are enjoying a snow flurry. Grrrrrr.  But you can see there has been a lot of snow melt. Warmth is predicted for this afternoon.  Although the season has been most unusual, the maple sugarers seem to be having a good run.

Daylily Bank

Even though the snow was very deep with plow piles along here, the exposure is to the south and snowmelt always comes early.

Front Garden

It is because of the warmth that come early that comes here, not to mention protection from the wind, that I prepared a new garden last spring using the lasagna method. Early lettuce, lots of broccoli, parsley and a nasturtium transition to the Daylily Bank. I can’t wait to begin again.

Krishna

The metal Krishna and the stone wall absorb enough heat from the winter sun to cause some snow melt at the far side of the Sunken Garden. The snow is still three feet deep here, and even deeper in the southwest corner.

It’s a good thing spring is almost here because the woodpile is seriously depleted. Two cords of wood – gone up in smoke.  Fortunately, there is more wood waiting to be split under the big plow pile.  Spring is coming. I can see it through the snowflakes.

Still Winter

It rained heavily all Monday night and continued lightly through the morning. Then the temperatures plummeted to 24 degrees. When I went out to my car at 11 am it was covered with ice, and all the locks and doors were frozen tight. I wasn’t going anywhere.

At 3 pm the sun began to shine brilliantly. It turned the trees and shrubs into crystal sculptures. Happily, even though the temperatures were still in the low 20s, the ice melted off the car and released the doors.

Autumnal Scenery by Orra White Hitchcock

Fortunately I can enjoy other scenes in my mind’s eye. Recently I traipsed down to the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College to see the Orra White Hitchcock (1796-1863) An Amherst Woman of Art and Science exhibit. I expected to see  delicate botanical drawings, and I did, but I also enjoyed her landscapes, landscapes that are very familiar to me, and most unexpectedly, the large classroom charts that she made to help her husband, Edward Hitchcock, teach the natural sciences at Amherst College.  You will be hearing more about  Orra here soon.  Don’t forget today is International  Women’s Day, and  it is Women’s History Month when we make a particular effort to explore the lives of intelligent, skilled and talented women we may have lost sight of.  Last March I wrote about landscape architect Beatrix Farrand and you can read about her here.

At Least We Have Sun

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Winter Night on Muse Day

Cold moon, cold moonlight

Tucking another blanket

around the newborn.

by CarolPurington  from Family Farm: Haiku for a Place of Moons

We have no newborn, but this haiku captures the way I feel as the winter night falls. When bedtime arrives I gaze out at our snowy landscape,  chill and luminous in the moonlight; I am happy to slip between my flannel sheets, and tuck a warm quilt around me.  Then I dream of spring when the snow is gone, when veils of green appear and when peepers in the Frog Pond sing me to sleep.

Thanks to Carolyngail who hosts the muses the first of every month.  Click here to see how others are inspired.

Weasel – Trapped!

Saturday morning I substituted for our wonderful Assistant Librarian, Lyra, who is on maternity leave and tending lusty young Jupiter. Needless to say the three chickens I had lost to a weasel during the week was a topic of conversation with library patrons. I said we put out a rat trap and a Havahart, but did not think that peanut butter was the kind of bait to attract a weasel. Everyone agreed that peanut butter did not sound like weasel food – and one knowledgeable patron confidently suggested liver.

When I got home I learned that another chicken had been killed. The traps were empty. Liver was our next strategy.  We found frozen liver at the supermarket and briefly balked at the $3.50 price tag. If successful we were only going to use an ounce or two; if unsuccessful we were going to give the chickens away and save them from certain death.  Finally we did toss the beef liver into our basket.

Sunday morning Henry gritted his teeth and tromped out to the hen house through more inches of new fallen snow.

He came back in the house and made me scream; the weasel had been seduced by the bloody liver. I will say no more about the weasel’s fate.