Trees

Every year since moving into my current house, I plant a few trees.  Every year a few of them die, either newly planted or seemingly established.
The trees I've planted range from some I've lovingly grown from seeds to a row of arborvitae that have become little more than a mowing headache.  I have quite the emotional attachment to the small paw paw trees grown from seed taken from trees that marked the location of my dog's final resting place.  Happily, they seem to have survived a very late freeze this year, despite loosing some of their new growth.

Sometimes I think I should just give up and grow bush honeysuckle.  I'm quite sure that it would take over the whole world if given the chance; if they ever colonize mars, they should bring that plant along and find a way to turn it into food since I'm sure it would also grow even in Mars' harsh atmosphere.

There is a hazy plan to my planting, with nothing directly in front of the house, evergreens to the west and south, and deciduous to the northeast.  The evergreens are mainly screen trees and wind breaks.  I've lost a few planted by the previous owners and have replaced them.  The newer short guys look to their bigger brethren for inspiration.

Sourcing trees is very troublesome.  What is available at the big box stores is usually pretty disappointing and is expensive for what it is.  I'm not sure where they come from, but I suspect they are grown very far away since once planted they do, at best, tolerably adequate.  I've had even less success with bare root stock delivered by mail order.  Mail order sounds very 1980s.  Should it be called internet order?  Or catalog order?

"Seed catalogs are responsible for more unfulfilled fantasies than Enron and Playboy combined." - Michael Perry

I sometimes think bare root stock should be called dead root stock.  Even with the success of the arborvitae, I don't think I'll go that route again.  The local Soil and Water District does an annual tree sale.  A few of these have stuck it out, but overall success rates are abysmal.  At least cost is nearly negligible.  There have been some of these that have soldiered on mightily, despite being froze, dug up, eaten by rabbits, etc.  I'll attribute this to being native trees grown nearby.  Most recently, potted trees from local growers are showing some promise.  Prices can be wildly variable, but some of the smaller operations have a lot to choose from for very reasonable prices.

I'm somewhat partial to trees that are native to the area, but will try just about anything that looks hardy.  My deciduous trees are almost all native species, with the exception of a few ginkgo trees; since these were once thought to be an extinct dinosaur from Pangaea, I guess they could be thought of as native to both everywhere and nowhere.

I really love paw paw trees.  I planted several of these at my previous house and once established, they did fantastic, eventually becoming gorgeous large, tropical-looking trees that bore copious amounts of fruit, as long as the flowers didn't freeze in the spring.  They are not quite as happy at the new house, since they do best as an understory tree and the little trees planted in the last few years get too much sun.
In addition to the ginkgos and paw paws, I have sassafrass, maple, oak, peach, and whatever the root stock was after the cherry tree graft died.  I also have one tree that I had given up for dead and now no longer remember what it is - I suspect it is a pecan, but it may be some kind of chestnut.  I'm quite surprised at the difficulty I've had with both the maples and oaks.

This year's deciduous tree additions were a couple buckeye trees.  Buckeyes have quite a taproot (as do paw paws), so they do not transplant well.  But I had little to lose, so I thought I'd try to transplant some from the edge of a nearby field.  There is a small wooded area between two farm fields that had some small trees.  I wasn't sure who owned the ground they were on, but they are in an area that is frequently brush hogged, so I didn't have any qualms about taking them.  Once I decided this, I wanted to get them planted before the end of the spring season, so on an early Sunday morning, I drove down to dig them up.  While doing so, I realized that I had made a situation that was assuredly perfectly acceptable with permission look preposterously suspect instead:  On the edge of a field in the wee hours of the morning digging up some "plants."  As expected the transplanted trees died exceedingly quickly.  Shortly thereafter, I bought some yellow buckeyes from a local nursery and again found myself looking like I was engaged in questionable behavior.  I picked up the trees and drove home with them inside the cab of my truck, since I didn't want the tree to be horrendously ripped apart by the wind on the 50 mile trip home.  Any idea what buckeye leaves could look like to Joe LawEnforcement if they aren't familiar with them?

So far, these buckeye trees are doing well.

Planting trees often seems pointless.  So many of them die; best intentions, even with water, do not sustain botanical life.  What I do hope, is that over time enough of them will survive.  Trees grow stealthily, never changing size during day to day monotony, but little by little inch their way up.  My kingdom will never be one Roger Cook would be proud of, and this is OK.  Hopefully I'll pull into my driveway some day and realize that I have my own mini unkempt forest.

"No, I understand now," Auberon said, calm in the woods - it was so simple, really.  "I didn't for a long time, but I do now.  You just can't hold people, you can't own them.  I mean it's only natural, a natural process really.  Meet.  Love.  Part.  Life goes on.  There was never any reason to expect her to stay always the same - I mean 'in love,' you know."  There were those doubt-quotes of Smoky's heavily indicated.  "I don't hold a grudge.  I can't."
"You do," Grandfather Trout said.  "And you don't understand."
     - From Little, Big by John Crowley