You Grow Girlâ„¢

The strange thing is, I was about to write this article just last week, but in the singular. My darling Wisteria seems not to have coped with the harsh winter we suffered through and the freeze/thaw disco we danced all spring. It has not yet produced a leaf and the buds, I fear, are on the verge of shriveling up and falling off. For those of you who have a Wisteria you know the excitement when it climbs and spreads a canopy over your porch or arbour, the fierce dedication you adopt to prune it many times throughout the year in search of the elusive flower; a drooping white or purple or lavender beauty with a heady scent. It can take 7 years to get a flower on your vine, and I was in my third. Half way almost! I have tried to make up for this sad gap in my garden with an unusually high number of climbing, flowering annuals. It’s not the same.

Dear readers, the saddest news of all is that I found out today I am about to lose 6 mature trees from my yard. I became a blubbering mess at work when I heard the news and took straight off home to visit my ancient and doomed friends.

When I bought my home the advertisements were sprinkled with that most desirable of features “mature treed lot”. A row of Elm, more than a century old, along the side and rear, with a row of mixed species on the other side. There were a few elms I worried about over recent years; I pruned as best I could, my dad brought his chainsaw up and did some of the heavier jobs. But some of the trees had scraggly ends, some leaned their ancient branches much too far into the neighbours’ yards, where they shed their leaves and became naked shadows of their former selves, hanging menacingly over cars, fences and sheds.

This year I called the City. As I live in the “City of Stately Elms” Dutch Elm disease is taken very seriously and my call was answered swiftly and professionally. The disease can be recognized when an Elm appears to die from the crown, and this is exactly what I had described to the municipal forestry department. By July they are able to successfully read a sample taken from the trees for a diagnosis. The city then removes the trees, at their expense, as an outbreak can be devastating for the entire neighborhood. Today they marked 6 of my trees with red paint, before going on to check the rest of the area. The crew indicated they would come back in the autumn to remove the trees, so that my perennials wouldn’t be damaged, and I was touched by the gesture.

I am trying to think positively. When I look at my marked trees they are fairly evenly staggered across the yard. The graceful and high canopy of greenery that I adore so much will be partially in tact when the slaughter is over. The ones that will remain appear broad and healthy and it may be that they will grow stronger and stand more proudly. It is my belief that the pruning, culling and maintenance of trees should have the dignity of the tree as their focus and I think those sick specimens had lost their dignity, had become a liability more than a sign of strength, symmetry and vitality.

And it is with certain excitement that I plan what I will plant in their places; to fill in the gaps that will appear shortly, as well as those that will appear when others die in the future. Michael would like a Cherry Tree up front where it is sunny, I am keen to try the Ginko, maybe three, mid-yard. And I have always wanted the tropical feel of a Weeping Willow. At the back I may opt for tall evergreens, to keep some colour through the year and to hide the adjoining yard’s satellite dish, one of those large ones from the cold war era (Mum, with her love of folk-art, suggested I approach the neighbours and ask if I could paint a brightly coloured flower on the dish, I have yet to gain the courage to do so.).

My tears are as much about the birds as they are for the trees. The dead and dying trees must have been photographed and circulated by the woodpecker tourist bureau, for I had every possible variety nesting and lounging in my yard, pecking for insects. From the tiny “Downy” to the large, Woody-Woodpecker type “Pileated”. And then there was the time when my Dad watched, fascinated, as a massive Goshawk took over one of the more dangerous branches in order to disembowel his lunch of fresh pigeon.

Like the bat welcoming committee of Spring 2003, I am going to have to do some extra work to keep my bird companions nearby. I will start to look for replacement trees very soon, maybe catch the late summer nursery sales. I will continue to construct more garden arbours out of old tree cuttings (the woodpeckers hang out there too) and I will investigate the shameless food-as-lure option.

It has been a hard day. I was not prepared for that many trees to be sent to the “knackers yard” and I have been devastated. Trees provide the architecture around which a garden is developed. And big old trees are silent mysteries, having seen so much while saying nothing.

I am starting to come around to the possibilities this opens up. The situation also speaks volumes, to me anyway, about the dangers of monoculture. I look forward to a new and motley assortment of trees gracing my yard, bringing new textures and colours to a former boulevard of Elm.