Trees without Walls

Weather: The first really cold morning, last Saturday. Some rain fell Thursday and Friday, but most stayed west of the Rockies. Last rain was 9/23.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, buddleia, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, datura, morning glories, Maximilian sunflowers, zinnia, pampas grass.

Beyond the walls and fences: Yellow evening primroses, bindweed, leather leaf globe mallow, broom snakeweed, áñil del muerto, native sunflowers, golden hairy, heath and purple asters.

In my yard: Large leafed soapwort, calamintha, winecup mallow, Mexican hats, chocolate flowers, coreopsis, blanket flower, French marigolds, Sensation and yellow cosmos, chrysanthemums.

Bedding plants: Wax begonias, sweet alyssum, gazania.

Inside: Zonal geraniums, moss roses.

Animal sightings: Small birds, geckoes, small bees, hornets, ants, grasshoppers.

Weekly update: There is no such thing as an environmentally friendly building, or an ecologically neutral footprint. No matter the materials, the design, or the intentions of the owners, walls introduce change.

If a wall faces south it absorbs heat from the sun, then reflects it back in the evening to protect areas from the worst winter temperatures. On its other side, it casts a shadow where snow doesn’t melt and the ground stays colder longer in the spring.

Depending on its orientation, a wall deflects the wind, which in turn diverts the rain. One side has wind erosion, the other side drought. If a wall is freestanding with a broad top, or if it’s part of a building with a roof, its overhangs create drip lines.

Plants exploit these microclimates.

Down the road from me, a man had an apple tree outside his trailer. I don’t know that he had ever did much for it, but it flourished.

I don’t know what happened to him, but one day in 2013 I saw a couple men dismantling his added entry porch. A few days later the trailer was gone, and the ground scraped bare.

However, the men saw the apple tree, and had that superstitious regard men have here for fruit trees, and carefully worked around it.

The tree survived, but it had lost its passive water source. Drips from the roofs of the trailer and the porch had kept it alive. It barely made it through this past winter. There were leaves on only one side this spring.

Then came July, that month when afternoon temperatures were in the 90s, not their usual 80s, and humidities fell below 10%. The tree is now barren in a field of Russian thistles that returned.

A catalpa on the road to Chama experienced the same bereavement. A roofed area stood near the road. I assume it once had been a produce stand, because no one stores anything of value like hay or heavy equipment that close to a highway. I suspect the owners had retired or died, and the trees survived on water from the roof.

In December of 2014 I drove by after a dozer had leveled the house, and was clearing the grounds. A few days later the owners installed a pipe rail fence near the road to replace the barrier created by the stand and scrub vegetation.

The catalpa and another tree managed to survive. The drive on one side has been paved, and asphalt, or whatever it is that’s used these days, doesn’t absorb as much water as gravel. The surplus rolls to the side and creates it’s own drip line at the edge. The roots must have spread into the spillway, though the branches showed no indication of the underground patterns.

This summer was brutal, but one side of the catalpa has leaves. More important, those leaves are green. They didn’t bleach out from the iron in the soil become too dry to feed the roots.

Some Siberian elms have just suffered a similar set back. A trailer burned on one of the busier two-lane streets in town in 2014, and for some reason it wasn’t cleared.

At some point, the owners put up some yellow tape to keep people out, but that was the only warning the remains were probably unstable. With no owner to keep them cut, a row of elms sprouted in the drip line.

Finally, this past March the trailer was cleared but not the grounds. I wonder how long those elms will survive, because even an elm will eventually die if you can manage to withhold the water long enough.

Photographs:
1. A house in the village, 29 September 2007, when morning glories covered the front wall and a pink rose bloomed by the entrance.

2. Same house this week, 23 September 2016. The person living there, who may not have been the same one who was there in 2007, let things go wild and erected coyote-style privacy barriers. A couple weeks ago, whoever owned the house had scraped the land clear, removed every sign of vegetation, including iris which usually are left alone. The rose may be huddled against the porch.

3. The Apple Trailer down the road, 19 April 2012.

4. Apple tree after the trailer was removed, 24 August 2013.

5. Apple tree this past week, after a brutal summer, 25 September 2016.

6. Produce stand, 12 September 2014. There’s a tree at the back left corner that’s surviving on water from the roof.

7. Produce stand, 7 December 2014, after the produce stand was razed.

8. Catalpa growing where the edge of produce stand had dropped water, 23 September 2016.

9. Burned out trailer in town, 9 December 2014. Whatever trees had grown in front had been singed by the fire.

10. Trailer space this past week, 23 September 2016, after the trailer was removed. A row of bright colored elms grow at a fairly uniform height where water had fallen from the charred frame.

Spring Greens

Weather: Rain after dark several nights this week; when I went out to see the darkening sky Thursday around 7 pm, there was a full rainbow. last rain 4/16. Ditches are running.

What’s blooming in the area: Apples, crab apples, cherries, purple leaf sand cherries, purple leaf plum, flowering quince, red buds, daffodils, moss phlox, donkey spurge. New leaves visible on apples and crab apples.

The local big box is now carrying pink and white flowering cherries and pink and white dogwoods. It’s getting more and more difficult to know which trees actually are blooming.

Beyond the walls and fences: Tansy mustard, alfilerillo western stickseed, and dandelions blooming. Scurf pea, green-leaf five-eyes, velvetweed and first round of pigweed coming up. Seeds blowing from Siberian elms. New leaves on Russian olives and cottonwoods.

In my yard: Sand cherries, Siberian pea, grape hyacinth, and vinca blooming. Raspberries, hostas, lilies of the valley, David phlox, sea lavender, catmints, blue flax, Saint John’s wort, Rumanian sage, tansy, anthemis, coreopsis, purple coneflowers, Maximilian sunflowers and Mönch asters emerging. Leaves opening on apricots, snowball, and beauty bush.

Inside: Zonal geraniums.

Animal sightings: Rabbits, small birds, ants, bees around Siberian peas, bees and smaller insects around sand cherries.

Saw a quail walking in the drive Wednesday morning. Later they were trying to colonize my back porch. Years ago they disappeared when my neighbor’s dogs were running loose. It’s the first I’ve seen them since other neighbors insisted he keep them inside his fence.

Weekly update: I visited a friend in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco last week. I expected things to be greener. What I didn’t expect was the green would look like a thick covering of algae.

The clouds cleared enough as the plane entered the state that Mono lake was visible. Snow fields in the Sierra Nevada followed. Then, as we traveled west and the mountain elevations decreased, a bright green appeared at the tops of ridges with the darker evergreens below.

Even when we landed, the same green covered the tops of hills along the road, both inland and along the coast. It was even the same color in the grasses in the vineyards and on the vines. It had to be grass, but it couldn’t be the same grass in all the locations.

I was only able to take pictures at a turnoff near the coast. By then the clouds had returned, and the lowered light exaggerated the colors.

When I got home, a walked up the road a bit to look at the equivalent kind of ridge. The junipers were scattered, and the just greening grass didn’t reach the tops.

Our bright greens come from newly emerged leaves. Among the earliest and most brilliant are the globe willows that can be seen across fields and arroyos.

Now the cottonwoods are beginning, but the green isn’t the same. It’s partly the difference in species, but it’s also the difference in bark. The willow trunks and branches are dark, and the cottonwoods nearly white.

I was told all that green I was seeing in California would turn golden in a few weeks, and look just like our grasslands. That part of the state had warmed earlier than usual, and there had been recent rains.

Here, it’s not just the grasses that ripen and dry. The Siberian elms, whose flowers were so chartreuse a few weeks ago, are now tanned by their seeds.

Photographs:
1. Rainbow over the prairie, 14 April 2016.

2. Algae in a settling pond on the north side of town, 10 October 2014.

3. Coastal hills in Sonoma County, California, 7 April 2016.

4. Grasses growing on a cone and ridges down the road, 14 April 2016.

5. Globe willow across the arroyo, taken with a telescopic focus, 14 April 2016. Badlands along route 30 in the background.

6. Cottonless cottonwood in my yard, 16 April 2016.

7. Siberian elm seeds, 14 April 2016.

8. Another picture of California, 7 April 2016.

Negligent Elms

Weather: Tuesday, for the first time this season, the sun was in my eyes when I was sitting at my desk; since early morning low temperatures have fallen into the high 30s; last rain 10/5.

What’s blooming in the area: Datura, morning glories, Maximilian sunflowers, Sensation cosmos, African marigolds, zinnias.

Beyond the walls and fences: Áñil del muerto, broom senecio; empty white seed receptacles on composites catch the early morning light along the roads.

In my yard: Calamintha, winecup mallow, pink evening primrose, sweet pea, Mexican hat, chocolate flower, blanket flower, coreopsis.

Bedding plants: Sweet alyssum, snapdragon.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, goldfinches.

The ground squirrel reestablished its barrier the day after I removed it. This time the row of cactus bits was reinforced with tops of purple coneflowers and pieces of tomatillo capsules. I removed it again, and again it laid its line of thorns.

Weekly update: Nothing signals neglect the way a field overrun by Siberian elms does.

When you drive the same roads day after day, you become familiar with passing yards. When one that’s flashed red roses and white roses of Sharon becomes hidden behind pigweeds and elms, you wonder if someone died, became ill or moved away. You never knew the owners, but you’ve miss their spirits anyway.

I’m often been puzzled why that particular tree has that emotional affect on me. It’s not just that it meets the technical definition of a weed and grows abundantly where it’s not wanted, though it certainly does that.

Every spring, the papery round seed cases are blown into my yard, where they settle in before they show they green heads. By the time I find them, their roots are several inches deep and can only be removed when the ground is thoroughly wet. If I cut them, they come back bushier than before.

Lots of plants do the same things, including the hollyhocks growing with the Ulmus pumila sprouts in my iris bed.

It’s what happens next. They become weedy, that is they outgrow themselves and become lanky, scrawny, gawky, gangly, rangy. The synonyms multiply.

When you look carefully, you see there are two traits that create this effect. The branches diverge widely from their trunks, and their leaves are small.

When they mature, there are enough branches to fill in the spaces, like the trees in the background of the above photograph. It’s their adolescence that’s distressing.

Compare them with the self-seeded fruit trees that bloom every spring.

If you look closely, you see the branches remain closer to their trunks. Their leaves are larger, and when they emerge, they give the trees the dense canopies we learn as children characterize shade trees. Their owners may not appreciate them, but I do.

Photographs:
1. Siberian elms in front of a local house.
2. The same area two years before.
3. Elm and hollyhock seedlings in my iris bed.
4. Two-year-old elm tree in my yard.
5. Self-seeded fruit trees in a local yard.
6. Another two-year-old elm next to a cherry tree.

7. Elms overrunning a local field. I imagine most of the mature trees in back are all elms, although the one with bare branches is a Russian olive.

Lame Tree Buds

Weather: 12:53 hours of daylight today.

Snow began Monday twilight, but temperatures stayed above freezing most of the night when I could hear water dripping off the back roof. It provided badly needed water to plants that like cold water.

What’s blooming in the area: Choke cherry, crab apple, flowering quince, forsythia, daffodils, alfilerillo, purple and tansy mustards, dandelion.

What’s blooming in my yard: Bradford pear, cherries, peach, sand cherry, hyacinth, vinca; buds on Siberian peas, lilacs, yellow alyssum.

What’s leafing in the area: Apples.

What’s leafing in my yard: Floribunda roses, hybrid tea roses and their Doctor Huey rootstock, purple leaf sand cherry.

Bedding plants: Pansies, sweet alyssum.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geranium, pomegranate.

Animal sightings: Small birds, gecko, ladybug, bees around peach, first hornets, young crickets, harvester and small black ants, earth worms.

Weekly update: Spring is more than apricots and daffodils.


All winter you look at trees that have been reduced to the bare sticks of their infancy.


And then there are signs of life.


The ones that are special, that you check more often, are the ones that had troubled childhoods. The ones that turned out to have damaged roots when you got them home, or were wind battered.

My purple leafed plum looked fine when I bought it in 2009, but before I could plant it a storm came through. Even though it was protected on my front porch, the branches were buried under heavy snow that turned to ice. When I touched them, the branches shattered.

The next spring it only had one good branch. The winter of 2011 was severe, but it started to recover with new branches near the ground.

Other people’s trees may be close to blooming right now, but I was overjoyed this week to see mine had simply put out leaf buds on all its branches.


The globe willow I bought in 2005 went into immediate shock. When it came back the next year, it was from the base. Now, I’m not even sure I have a globe willow. It could be some kind of root stock.

Still, even as I my neighbor continued to clear damage from his dead trees with a back hoe, I was happy to see the smallest leaves separate from the protective scale and start to individualize themselves.


This year I put in a new cherry which arrived with buds already breaking dormancy. The question, would they die from shock or would I be able to protect them because I was home during the day?

The answer won’t be known for a season, but when I saw it separate from the tree I had hopes of success.


When I’m out looking for signs of change, I always come upon the volunteers so eager to please me, hoping when I see their leaves emerging, I’ll be excited and won’t try to kill them again. I may ponder the vagaries of nature, when kindness kills and malignancy does not, but I’ll still cut down the Siberian elms whenever I see them.


Photographs:
1. Apricot still trying to bloom with expanding leaf buds, 5 April 2012. The apricots were caught in the same snow storm as the plum, and haven't yet fully recovered.

2. Recently emerged daffodils in shadow of the garage, 25 March 2012.

3. Tamarix leaf buds, 4 April 2012.

4. Tamarix leaf buds elongating, 4 April 2012.

5. Purple leafed plum leaf buds, 4 April 2012.

6. Emerging leaves on globe willow, or its root stock, 28 March 2012.

7. Newly planted Stella cherry leaf bud, 4 April 2012.

8. New leaves on Siberian elm, hiding from discovery, 4 April 2012.

Siberian Elm

What’s growing in the area: Pink and white flowering trees, daffodils, tansy mustard, and dandelions are blooming; four-winged saltbush and blackbush are leafing out; loco and muhly ring grass are greening.
In my yard: Until Saturday’s snow, peach and forsythia were blooming; lilac, cherry, and sand cherry buds were showing color. Siberian pea tree and spirea leaves are opening; caryopteris leaves are forming; first red hot poker, hosta, and coreopsis are up; garden phlox and Rumanian sage have first leaves.
What’s blooming inside: Aptenia, kalanchoë, bougainvillea, coral honeysuckle.
Animal sightings: Brown birds were pecking through seeds that were exposed when I cleaned part of the north bed Sunday; yesterday afternoon, bees buzzed around the peach.
Weather: Snow before sunrise Saturday was gone as soon as the sun appeared; earlier in the week, temperatures ranged from below freezing to low 60's with occasional winds. 13:47 hours of light today.
Weekly update: Now is the season people who hate Siberian elms hate the most. Last year’s seeds are sprouting with roots already longer than the visible stalks, while the newest crop of fertile chartreuse disks is starting to gather in the cracks and corners of the post office.
The tree is detestable enough for its housekeeping habits, but many hate it on philosophical grounds. They go to the river in search of what’s unique about the bosque, and instead this water-hungry, sun lover is what they see. The realities of survival in a drying environment do not meet their images for the desert southwest.
Some scoff at those who introduced the tree, looking on the promotion of Siberian elms during the depression as another government boondoggle. But then, the agriculture department was concerned with the consequences of another confrontation between hopes and realities, between attempts to farm the plains and years of drought that produced the dust bowl. It found descendants of seeds brought from the Peking area in 1914 by Frank Meyers could survive those brutal conditions to slow erosion and put the unemployed to work.

Chuck Dunbar, an Albuquerque blogger, blames their use in the city in the 1950's on an "ecologically ignorant mayor." In those years, my parents planted Chinese elms along the street of their house in an area where the boundary separating the new subdivision from town was the oaks and maples lining streets of established neighborhoods.

At that time, the two species, Ulmus pumila and Ulmus parvifolia, were often confused, and while my mother thinks she ordered the second, she more likely received the first. She knew her trees would grow quickly, but were short-lived. The Chinese tree has stronger wood that’s less likely to crack in ice storms, stays green in winter in warm climates, and is less hardy far north.

When I sold the house some thirty years after she planted her trees, the maples were just filling out, but the elms still stood. Unlike her American elm, they had defied Dutch elm disease. They not only had met her hopes to establish a home that looked like all the others of her childhood in other tree-lined towns, but outlived her.

Of course, one did find the pipe that connected the house to the water main and irritated my father no end. But even he did not have the tree cut down; he simply paid the plumber and replanted the lawn in her memory.

Naturally I’m ambivalent about this reminder of my childhood. I certainly don’t want any tree with weak wood and strong taproots growing near the house or garage. I’ve learned the seedlings are hard to remove, and regenerate when broken off. I’ve had to cut down the same tree for several years before the root finally gave up.

Still, the dark green corduroy leaves are no where near as dangerous as those of maples or catalpas in the fall when they turn yellow. The toothed lances bending inward from central ribs are simply too small to clog eaves and downspouts, won’t suffocate what lies under them in winter, and can’t harbor other pests. They just blow away or disintegrate.

I’m perfectly content to have them in front where little grows since it was grazed decades ago. However, they won’t settle there, for the same reasons they don’t invade the prairie. The seeds prefer disturbed ground, especially along shoulders and outbuildings where extra moisture collects.

When I look at the landscape this time of year, studded with daubs of bright green against dark evergreens and still pale, leafless cottonwoods, I realize how barren this place would be without the brown-anthered flowers. I love the grandeur of the grasslands, but my mother raised me to feel uncomfortable if no trees exist to demarcate civilization. Whatever their faults, these trees do volunteer to live on alkaline soil with salty water in high winds while the preferred fruit trees huddle behind the shelter of stuccoed walls and coyote fences.

Notes:
Dunbar, Chuck. "Bonsai Forest of Siberian Elm," 1 April 2007, available on-line.

Photograph: Siberian elm along the shoulder, 5 April 2008.