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Category: trees

Bouncing and Bierstadt

Bouncing and Bierstadt

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Last evening, a late-in-the-day bounce on the trampoline. I’ve jumped at this time before but had forgotten how transcendent it is.

The sun was low in the sky but not yet setting. From my vantage point the trees in the front yard were shining. And though I knew it was a reflected gleam, I could not shake the belief that they had generated that light themselves. Beyond the leaves was the sky — and it was the shade of blue it turns before going out for the night — a radiant hue.

The landscape had the sentimental, heroic scale of a Bierstadt painting, which was no doubt caused by exhaustion and bouncers’ (instead of runners’) high.

But it was as real to me as any humdrum scene, as real as the pale dawn now unfolding outside my door.

(Albert Bierstadt, Forest Sunrise)

Stopped in Their Tracks

Stopped in Their Tracks

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On the High Line yesterday nature-starved New Yorkers clustered around a red bud tree as if it were a work of high art. It halted them mid-promenade — the beauty of the nubby blossoms, the radiant color against the neutral palette of lower Manhattan.

I compare this tree with all the wild red buds I saw driving through the hills of West Virginia ten days earlier. Brilliant volunteers alone and unnoticed, living out their bloom on lonely hillsides.

Not this tree. It’s well loved, earnestly photographed. And it’s no volunteer. Even its position — pushing up through the rails of an abandoned railway— is no accident.

New Yorkers stride nonchalantly past soaring skyscrapers — but a single tree stops them in their tracks. It’s a reversal worth noting.

Tree with a Story

Tree with a Story

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Still thinking trees from yesterday, I snapped a few shots of them on my run. This one has a story.

As I was lining up the picture, I noticed a man making his way to the curb with a small bag of trash. He paused, waited for me to finish before moving forward. It was like we were at the Washington Monument or something.

When I thanked him, he smiled and said: “Do you know what kind of tree that is?”

I admitted that I did not.

“It’s a pumpkin ash. Way out of its range but somehow it survives. It’s called pumpkin ash because of its shape. Probably several hundred years old. Lost a big branch in the ice storm but it’s still here.”

A tree with a story. How many trees have them? More than we think, I bet.

Old Guard

Old Guard

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The Bluegrass region of Kentucky is a natural savannah land, and trees here are in short supply. The old oaks, the ones that have been here 100 years or more, are gnarled and magnificent.

They stand sentinel in fields. They rise handily above young maples or pines. 

Because trees are scarce here, I notice them more. To come upon one now is to see what a tree can be.

The Hedge in Autumn

The Hedge in Autumn

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I have a thing for hedges. Don’t know why. Maybe it’s the Anglophile in me dreaming of British hedgerows. Or maybe it’s the hospitality of hedges, the way they open themselves to sparrows and other small creatures.

Whatever the reason, I pay close attention to hedges, their colors and seasons. The hedge I pass each workday, the one I’ve written about in spring — the equipoise of pink and green as it buds — is now in brilliant autumn leaf. 

I like to think the pink-red part of the spectrum has asserted itself at last. After wearing green all summer the hedge is finally letting its true colors show.

Tunnel of Trees

Tunnel of Trees

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In the great cycle of seasons, topics announce themselves with some regularity. Every year at this time (if not earlier), I notice the steady progression of leaf and bough, how the trees on one side of the road lean in, reach over and touch the trees on the other side.

The result of this mutual growth and attraction is a tunnel of trees, surely one of nature’s most subtly beautiful offerings.

Why is it so magical? I think about this when I’m driving down Fox Mill or Vale or (when in Kentucky) Pisgah Pike outside Lexington.

Do the lofty boughs remind me of a cathedral? Or is the appeal from the coziness, the impenetrability, of a cavern built of leaf and shade?

There’s no explanation, of course. It’s beauty plain and simple.
 

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by tom8yours

Life and Death in the Forest

Life and Death in the Forest

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I look out the window and see the leaves flashing green and
think of walks I’ve taken recently, how I march now through a tunnel of
treetops bending. This is the settled Folkstone, this shining place, with a
forest encroaching on the road and the road obliging. 
Step off the road, follow
the path, and you will enter a place of gathering sunshine. As the road is
greening, the woods are clearing. The big trees are falling, dying, living out
their natural lives. They are tumbling down in fierce rains and big winds. They
are falling there, even if they’re not heard, and we, the walkers, are the only
ones who notice.
A Pageant of Green

A Pageant of Green

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On a walk this weekend I notice not just the pinks, purples and blues — but also the greens. Not just one but many, the trees as variegated in spring as they are in fall.

The delicate veil of the new weeping willow. The shiny darkness of the budding holly. The praying-hand buds of the tulip tree. The juvenile leaves of the red oaks, formed but not yet fully.

A ring of green around the meadow. A scarf of green tossed carelessly across the roof.

A pageant of green, freshened by rain.

Urban Density

Urban Density

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An article in the this morning’s Washington Post gives a new meaning to these words. Not density of people, density of trees. Turns out that in the District of Columbia and its suburbs, trees are a true marker of income. Where the tree cover rating is 82 percent, median household income is over $200,000; where the rating is 48 percent, median household income is $36, 250.

Trees aren’t cheap. At least they haven’t been for us. And even with pruning, watering and fertilizing, the trees in our yard are dying much faster than we can replace them.

I learned from the article that D.C.’s overall tree canopy has declined from 50 percent in 1950 to 36 percent today, a change due mostly to development. (In the suburbs it may be the opposite, because many neighborhoods here used to be farms with tillable fields and open meadows until the houses went in.)

After reading this article, I feel like taking off for the closest woodland path. I’d rather not think of trees in socioeconomic terms, but now, unfortunately, I will.

Twisted

Twisted

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In this season of flower and shoot, consider the redbud tree. Its bloom is not red at all, but a vivid  shade of lilac. Like jewel-tone azaleas, this plant does not mess around with pale pastel. It is bold.

But it’s not the bud of the redbud I want to talk about, it’s the trunk — often gnarled, like the most venerable of the Yoshino cherries.

When I see a twisted trunk I think of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio:

On the trees are only a few gnarled apples that the pickers have rejected. … One nibbles at them and they are delicious. Into a little round place at the side
of the apple has been gathered all of its sweetness. One runs from tree to tree over the frosted ground
picking the gnarled, twisted apples and filling his pockets with them. Only the few know the sweetness of
the twisted apples.

In spring our eyes are drawn to extravagant bloom and brilliant color. But underneath are the crooked trunks, which are beautiful all year long. They are sturdy in their imperfections. They are as sweet as twisted apples.