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Category: trees

The Other Cherry

The Other Cherry

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To visit the Tidal Basin in late March or early April is to walk through a tunnel of ethereal white blossoms, to be transported into the soul of early spring. The Yoshino cherry trees never fail to transfix and amaze a winter-weary populace.

But there is another blooming cherry tree, a later arrival, whose beauty I appreciate more each year. It’s the Kwanzan, its blossoms pinker and more vivid than the Yoshino. The Kwanzan have a warmer hue and a more generous, sturdy flower. Fat-fisted, big-hearted —as awe inspiring as their cousin, maybe even more so.

I’m looking at ours right now. I didn’t understand what it was when we bought it, thought we’d purchased a Yoshino, and the first year or two was disappointed with its late, scarce bloom. But this year it has come into its own. Right now it’s wagging its head in the cool, brilliant sunshine. Look at me, it’s saying. Have you ever seen such a sight?

Pear Trees

Pear Trees

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It’s the most suburban of neighborhoods, a place of happy families and dogs and swim team cheeriness. It’s tidy and cultivated.

Except every spring when the Bradford pears bloom. Then it’s magical. The natural world has taken over and I hardly notice the vans with sports stickers.

The white trees, the way they bend over the road.  Their lacy branches and dark trunks. The ethereal effect of it all.

Spring reminds us of what is invisible the rest of the year.

Waiting for Spring

Waiting for Spring

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An early morning trip to see the cherry blossoms. The only pink I see is in the sky. The buds, tight-fisted, will hold out a few days more.

They are bundled up as warmly as I am in coat, scarf and gloves.

But they’ll be worth the wait. They always are.

Indecision

Indecision

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The witch hazel has been poised like this for weeks. Half in autumn, half in spring. Some of the branches blooming, others not.

A true gardener might look at the tree and say, uh oh, it was nipped by frost — or it’s developed [add scary tree disease here] — or the big storm last June was hard on it, and that explains this holding back, this pause.

But I look at the witch hazel and see human nature. How easy it is to embrace the new,  how difficult to forget the old.

I look at it and see indecision.

Impaled!

Impaled!

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It looks like an interloper in the garden, a volunteer tree that decided to grow there overnight. But it’s actually a branch impaled by the wind — just about the only evidence we have of the storm that’s ravaging our neighbors to the north.

Apparently, folks in Boston are getting as much snow per hour as we’ve gotten all winter. That would be two inches.

This makes it official. No complaints about winter this year. They’re not allowed.

View from the Tramp

View from the Tramp

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I used to think of trampoline bouncing as a warm weather activity, something best done barefoot in summer. But this year (maybe because it’s been warm, maybe because I have a greater need to move to music), I’ve been doing it all fall and winter, too.

Last week I ventured out in the snow. It was a light dusting, and the stuff was powdery enough to sift right through the pad onto the ground. Yesterday I bounced after the sleet had stopped and the day had cleared.

If I bounce long enough, the backyard starts to look pretty good: the brush no longer needs chipping;  the trees no longer need trimming. They are shaggy friends now, these trees, with long, spindly arms that touch the sky.

Trees, Unmasked

Trees, Unmasked

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In summer they are backdrop. Essential, green, the air we breathe.

In winter they drop all pretense. They are not smooth and uncomplicated. They are gnarled and uneven.

Here is what lies beneath the leaf, the flower. Here is what they really are.

Give them a gray sky, a brisk wind. They can handle it.

Graceful Exit

Graceful Exit

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The pin oaks of my youth were all over Lexington, but where I remember them most is along Chinoe Road (that’s SHIN O WAY).  They rustled their dry leaves in front of some of the more desirable real estate in town.

Long after the leaves of other trees had flamed up, dropped off and blown away, the pin oaks hung onto their poor brown specimens. Pin oak leaves had not mastered the art of the graceful exit. Even with snow on the ground, they clung to their branches. They reminded me of old women with overly made up faces; like them, they did not know when to quit.

Walking past a grove of pin oaks the other day brought these memories to mind, how I had always disliked the tree, found it ugly and lacking in grace.

But this year the pin oak has company. This year many leaves fell during the hurricane, and some trees are nearly bare, but certainly not all. At least a third are half-leaved. It’s as if they’ve forgotten what to do next.

Pin oaks don’t provoke me as they used to.  Perhaps it’s because I’m older (though not overly made up!) and see the wisdom of clinging to what nature has given us until nature, in its wisdom, takes it away.

Leaves and Sky

Leaves and Sky

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Afternoon quickly turns to evening these days, and if I walk a little later than usual, the moon is my companion. It was so yesterday, a pale half, and beside it in the sky, a tangle of contrails.

The balmy air, the early evening and the usual group of dog walkers and fishermen out in Franklin Farm Meadow. But someone else, too. A woman with a camera stood by the pond and aimed her lens at the sky.

I followed her glance upward, and saw the clouds and contrails mingle in the afterglow. The sky continued to redden as I made my way home. By the time I reached Folkstone, it was a radiant pink. Not unlike the maple leaves that are almost, not quite, at their peak.

Forest Fire

Forest Fire

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In summer the forest is dark and cool; ferns stir slightly, like ancient fans, and the ripple of a distant spring promises relief from the sizzling pavement.

In winter and spring the woods are open and bare but still not what you would call bright. The trees are pale sentinels and what greenery there is keeps its head to the ground.

But in autumn —ah, in autumn — the woods are all lit up from the inside, and entering them feels like walking into a party that has been going on for some time. The forest makes its own light this time of year. Each tree is an engine; the leaves are its fire.

Walking in the woods on a bright afternoon, the light is all around me. I don’t want to let it go.