Some scientists predict an increase in natural disasters as a result of global warming. But somehow I think something else is responsible for all the volcanoes I see erupting in my neighborhood.

‘Volcano’ is the term coined for that mound of mulch that folks pile around a tree this time of year. Even though all the credible references advise against this, it somehow seems to be very popular. I drive through developments in which landscapers have generously heaped the mulch into a nice pyramid around every tree.

After spending a fair amount of money on new trees, you would think a homeowner would want to protect that investment. One of my neighbors recently built a series of volcanoes around the trees throughout his yard. It looks kind of cool, but just like Mount Vesuvius, these volcanoes can be deadly. That pile of mulch heats the base of the tree and holds moisture up against the bark. Not only does this encourage pests and diseases, but the tree responds by sending out new roots into that pile of mulch. Instead of spreading outward, these new roots grow inside the pile and over time can girdle the tree as they expand.

The International Society of Arboriculture recommends mulching tree root zones to help retain moisture in the ground and act as a weed barrier. But to avoid decay, disease and pests, ISA calls for mulch to be kept one to two inches away from the base of the tree. So a good gardening practice after mulching is to go back and sweep away any that might have piled up on the tree flare.

The trees will thank you.

Do you happen to know anyone who is “thin-skinned?” One icy stare and they split? That is apparently what happened to one of my cherry trees this winter.

Trees with thin bark are susceptible to splitting on days with large temperature fluctuations. It is not uncommon in late winter or early spring for temperatures to go from sunny and 50 to 20 degrees in a matter of hours. The bark expands and contracts accordingly and sometimes the thin skin of a cherry or a maple tries to contract too fast and ends up splitting. Sometimes the winter sun can heat up one side of the tree trunk while the other side remains below freezing. And this temperature differential can also cause splitting.

As with any bark damage, simply trim off the loose pieces and the tree will eventually form a callus over the wound.

Despite the large split, this snow fountain cherry still performed extremely well this spring. These white flowers cascade all the way down to the ground the first week of April each year.  And when the petals drop, this is the only kind of snow I don’t mind clearing off the walk! 

Tale One: Big Tree, Big Axe.  Cleveland Botanical Garden has a row of maturing, healthy Norway maples (Acer platanoides) growing along East Boulevard.  And we are cutting them down.

Actually native to Norway and across northern Europe, the Norway maple has a detailed association with humans.  If never a lumber tree, it has long been valued for fine carpentry and horticulture.  In early 1700s Italy, Antonio Stradivari probably made the back boards for his supreme violins from Norway maple.  By the mid 1700s Norways had crossed the Atlantic to appear in Colonial seed lists; there is a 1756 record of one being planted in Philadelphia.  Norways were popular in 1800s New England as garden fancies (curiously, all our trees came from English nurseries, where Norway maple is non-native, so we have no wild provenance on  U.S. stocks).

But it took Dutch elm disease of the 1930s to bring the Norway maple to its current prominence in the northeastern U.S.  This disease that devastated our native American Elm (Ulmus americana) created a huge void in our street tree population, a void that was filled by existing nursery stock in the form of the Norway.  And it was a good elm substitute, for it was found to be easy to commercially re-propagate in a hurry, to transplant well, to grow vigorously on site, and to have tremendous tolerance of urban environments.

But the Norway also makes impenetrable canopy shade, throws copious fertile seed, and chemically inhibits competing seedlings. This suite of traits both “good” and “bad” soon helped the Norway become—you guessed it—a woody weed.

So here at the Garden, we had three Norway maples removed (I can’t say “felled” since they were hoisted up from their stumps and craned out of the garden) the week before last.  In the coming years, more will be removed.  And we already have a plan for the sunny slope they are leaving behind.  Our Woodland gardener has selected a swath of flowering shrubs, small trees, ferns and wildflowers to grow and thrive in this space.  The emphasis is on native plants, but there are exceptions; the design is naturalistic, but with an artistic gleam.  So watch this space with some anticipation.  Coming soon are flame azaleas and rosebay rhododendrons, native silverbell and spirea, hay-scented fern and fragrant sumac; a hillside painting in the sunshine.

Look around you.  If you have an ornamental maple in your yard with burgundy, bronze or chartreuse foliage, it is a Norway hybrid.  I don’t loathe the Norway so much as respect its potential.  Like all weeds, to me it is half-terror, half-teacher.

Tale Two: Big Tree, Small Axe.   Cleveland Botanical Garden has a nice Chestnut Oak (Quercus prinus) at the edge of the Restorative Garden, and right now it is dropping twigs damaged by a girdling beetle.

The flat-headed longhorn oak girdling beetle (poss. Oncideres quercus) probably won’t kill the tree.  But over the past few years of infestation it has already disfigured its twigs, by inducing hundreds of haphazard, zigzag re-growths.  And I have been taught by experience that one tree stress often invites others, which add up to sometimes deadly arithmetic.

This beautiful little creature wears wing covers that look as if they are made from hammered lead, and sprouts segmented, elegantly curved antennae that extend from flat head halfway to pointy tail.  It leads a peculiar and particular life.  The little twig tips littering the ground today were fashioned last autumn into nursery chambers by the adult beetles.  The adults chewed “girdling” rings into their twigs, and then laid a few to a few dozen eggs under the bark of each of their outrigger twigs.   The adults soon died, but their eggs hatched within the twigs, and spent the winter as larvae, nestled and safe up in the tree.  With this spring’s winds and rain, the girdled—and killed—twigs are now snapping free from their moorings, and falling to the garden floor.  And it is down here that the oak girdling beetle larvae begin to feed for a few weeks, eating their nursery walls.  They then pupate, again in their original twig chambers.  By mid-summer, the flying adults will hatch, eat some green wood, mate, and girdle more living chestnut oak twigs to complete their annual life cycle.  I will collect some twig tips, keep them contained, and see if I can capture one of the hatching adults this summer.  If successful, I will post pictures here.

Common in Ohio, I see evidence of the oak girdling beetle every year in chestnut oaks, white oaks (Quercus alba), and bur oaks (Quercus macrocarpa), too.  Bur oak twigs snap off a few months from now; is the wood perhaps more durable, or does bur oak bear a different species of beetle?

If you have girding beetles living in your oak, don’t fret.  Tend to the tree’s general health and it will withstand the infestation.  Don’t compact your oak tree’s soil or cut its roots, and don’t mulch it too heavily.  Prune damaged wood that might invite secondary disease.  And collect and destroy all the fallen twigs, so removing the next generation of beetles in the process.

Oaks have co-evolved along with a host of voracious native insects.  For their half of this never-ending pull-and-tug, oaks manufacture an array of tannins and possibly lignins for chemical defense. Nevertheless, an oak un-blighted by apple gall wasps, oak leaf rollers, or girdling beetles seems unusual to me.  They must be generous trees, and surely the flat-headed longhorn oak girdling beetle is fortunate for this bounty.

There you go: Two Cutting Tree Tales; Or, What I Saw In The Garden.

Posted by Mark Bir 
 

              Ahh, spring . . .  so many beautiful shrubs, trees, and flowers coming into bloom, many filling the air with such delightful aromas that it makes you want to go up and smell each and every flower. That is, until you come across one of those beautiful white flowering trees that seem to be planted everywhere – and before you can even approach the tree you are overwhelmed with a terrible, somewhat fishy smell that just turns your stomach.  

      That beautiful white tree is the ornamental pear tree, Pyrus calleryana. It is a very commom tree in the landscape, especially as a street tree, because of its medium size, attractive narrow form, and its relatively low cost.  Its biggest drawbacks are usually considered to be that many cultivars are either prone to fireblight, or tight branch angles, or both. Narrow branch angles cause weak points in the tree structure and can cause large limbs to split from the tree and ruin its form. In my opinion, this tree’s biggest offense is the horrendous smell of its flowers. They have such a strong scent that there have been times when that I identified a pear tree’s prescence before acutally seeing it. So, if you are wondering why your yard has that terrible odor every spring, look around for a tree covered in white flowers and you’ll know.

     Ornamental pears aren’t the only smelly trees. Soon after the pears flower, the hawthorns begin to flower. They have a very similar smell, but not quite as strong. Plus, they are not nearly as common. Probably the worst offender is the ginkgo tree, Ginkgo biloba. It’s not the flowers that smell in a ginkgo – in fact ginkgos are not flowering plants. It is the fruits that fall in early autumn.  The fruits contain buytric acid, a chemical also found in vomit, which is exactly what the rotting fruits smell like. Luckily, the trees are dioecious and you can plant a male tree with no fruits.  

       If you can’t stomach the smell of ornamental pear but still want a nice spring flowering display, perhaps a good alternative would be a flowering crabapple. They are also very common landscape trees, but come in such a wide variety of colors, shapes, and sizes that I wouldn’t call them overused. Many cultivars also have attractive colored fruits in the fall, unlike ornamental pears which only have small brown nubs of fruit that go unnoticed by most.  A second option would be serviceberry, Amelanchier sp.. These medium-sized trees have showy but short lived flowers in early spring with edible berries in early summer. For more information on serviceberries, check out one of my earlier blogs here.  

Posted by Nate Tschaenn

Violaceus euphonia looking for nectar in the avocado tree (Persea americana)

     This time of year, there are a few trees in the Costa Rican exhibit that like to drop some or all of their leaves. It can be kind of embarrassing- and messy- to have trees in a tropical glasshouse without any leaves, but it is completely normal. Many tropical trees lose many, if not all, their leaves for a short period this time of year before putting out a new set of leaves.

    Also, not all of them are completely naked because this is also the time many trees, like the avocado tree on the left, start to flower. It makes perfect sense that trees would flower when there are fewer leaves in the way. Having no leaves when in flower greatly increases the visibility of the blooms so they can be easily seen by pollinators. The nectar feeding birds and butterflies have certainly noticed that the avocados are in bloom and have been spending a lot of time in these trees. I can already see the avocado fruits starting to form.

     In Costa Rica, December to March is known as the "dry season," and this is when many deciduous and semi-deciduous trees and plants lose their leaves (the rest of the year is known as the "green season" or "rainy season"). The sparse canopy in the dry season can reveal plants and blooms that may have been hidden during the green season and can make it easier to spot animals. The rainforest canopies are also painted with color from the showy blooms of trees like the two Tabebuia species pictured below.  Tabebuias are dry season deciduous trees that bloom while completely leafless shortly before leafing out.

Tabebuia impetiginosa	Tabebuia aurea

Posted by Nate Tschaenn 

Why do we prune woody plants?

We prune them to improve their fitness.  Interior branches are removed to invite more sunlight.  Crossing branches are cut away from their neighbors to prevent rubbing injuries. Weak and failing branches are pruned out to prevent storm damage and discourage disease.

We prune them to highlight facets of their beauty or utility.  Old trunks are lopped from weary lilacs to encourage fresh flowering stems.  Apple trees are thinned to encourage better fruit set.  And spent rhododendron flowers are dead-headed to foster flower development for the next spring.

We prune them to keep them in bounds.  Limbs are taken away from our buildings, shade branches are lifted off of our vegetable gardens, and dangerous branches are cut from electric lines.

We even prune them for art.  Sycamores are pollarded, hawthorns are pleached and dogwoods are espaliered, all here at the Garden.  The Topiary Garden is a fanciful journey through a gardener’s imagination.

All great “whys” and all good gardening practice.  And I got to put them into action last week, when I pruned a row of crabapples here at the Garden.

These particular crabs were originally part of a temporary planting that has now become semi-permanent.  They’d gotten too big for their site, and so I determined to make a few major cuts that would bring them back to scale.  And being clump or shrub crabapples (probably one of the Malus “Zam” hybrids developed in Lake County), they had also become densely tangled with young suckers and small branches and spurs, and too scruffy for their formal setting; so I decided to give them a little secondary pruning as well.

With apple trees, there are at least three established basic pruning styles from which to choose.  We can train apples to have: strong central leaders (the future main trunks); ladders of lateral branches on a few co-leaders; or no remaining central leaders.

I chose to use my major cuts to remove all their central leaders.  Why?  Being shrubby crabs, I felt this protocol best reflected their natural “wild” tendencies, and allowed me to reduce their size without resorting to awkward and unhealthy topping and end cuts. Through this process, they will also receive more interior light, and subsequently fill with flower and fruit next spring.  And with this pruning style, I only needed to make a few center cuts to each tree to achieve a convincing improvement.

In this order, here’s what I did.
1. Stared at each tree for 10 minutes.
2. Decided on the two or three big cuts to make—wait.
3. Removed all root- and stem-suckers (these are crabapples’ bad habits).
4. Double-checked my decisions, and then made those big cuts.
5. Studied the tree for a few more minutes.
6. Removed some secondary branches.
7. Carefully pruned branch tips only where required, following natural branch shapes.
8. Looked at it again. If in doubt about a branch,  I left it for tomorrow!

I pruned these trees during late winter (well, okay—early, early spring) to allow me to inspect them without leaves to obstruct my view.  The penalty is that I removed many set flower buds along with the pruned branches. 

I could also have chosen to prune them just after the flowers fade in late May.  The plants will accept either treatment.  I wanted to shrink them and get them shapely again immediately, so I felt it was a fair trade to accept a lighter bloom this spring.

See the accompanying pictures below to see the whole job in action.  If I did a good job, over the coming months you and I both will get to watch in-person this little row of crabapples fill with light and prosper within bounds. 

Posted by Mark Bir
 

 It’s March again, so it must be time for my annual haircut—er, for the shrubs and trees in The Garden, that is.  Woody plants are drawing near to the end of winter dormancy, and that means we’ve entered the year’s first pruning season.

But is pruning easier said than done?  Based on copious scene-of-the-crime evidence suffered by the hacked shrubs and whacked trees I see in our forest city, the answer must be “apparently so!”  True, true, but still a snob’s response.   Any of us can effectively prune well.  If we take the time to learn a few horticultural concepts, basic pruning becomes a pleasant exercise and beneficial service to our shrubs and trees, and easy enough to make a good job of it on the first try.

Certainly pruning has some subtleties, and every plant wants a unique, custom haircut. So, I simplify.  Every time I prune, I consider my four prescriptions: seasonal timing; specific plant habit; desired product; proper cutting technique.  These four prescriptions ensure that I think about all aspects of the job, and give the plant in front of me “its” cut.  Let’s go through the four prescriptions one-by-one.

One: seasonal timing.   A deciduous woody plant remains alive during the winter by slowing its metabolism to a near stop.  But in a few weeks, warmth and lengthening daylight will end dormancy and trigger fresh growth.   And this moment just before the end of dormancy is when we prune.  Why?  Wounds are open to disease and insects for only a short while before active growth begins healing them.  The plant has the entire growing season to respond to its haircut, set new wood, and look natural again by summer’s end.

Two: specific plant habit.  This prescription can usefully modify seasonal timing.  Some plants (maples, magnolias, birches) are “bleeders,” and will leak sap from pruning cuts for a couple of months in the spring.  This plant habit is the foundation of the maple syrup trade.  Bleeding reportedly does the plant no harm, but it doesn’t help (!), and it is also unsightly.  Instead, opt to prune these plants in late June.   They won’t bleed, and will still have enough of the growing season left to heal their wounds.

Other woody plants, especially our flowering shrubs, have the habit of blooming on “old” wood.  That’s wood that was grown as twigs the summer before.  If we prune these plants in late winter, we cut off all the year’s flower buds.  So, its best practice to prune old wood flowering shrubs just after spring’s bloom fades.  Then, they’ll grow new twigs, set abundant flower buds, and blossom vibrantly next spring.  A great example of this are the evergreen azaleas, which  can be sheared after blooming to within an inch of their lives, and flower like crazy again next spring.

Three: desired product. Why do we prune?  Are we growing a fruit tree or a topiary shrub?  Do we want a formal row of shrubbery, or do we just want to keep the lilacs off of the house?  So, we think about what we want the plant to be, but also think about what the plant will accept from us.  This prescription makes sure our pruning intentions don’t contradict seasonal timing and plant habit.  And taken together, the first three prescriptions build a f foundation for pruning with purpose rather than reckless abandon (as fun as that can be). 

Four: proper cutting technique.  This prescription is important because it recognizes how woody branches heal wounds, and guides us to make cuts that encourage quick recovery.  In brief,

• When removing a side branch, never remove any bark or wood that is part of the main branch or trunk
• Always cut at an angle that is “backwards-in-the-mirror” from the warty branch collar scar growing at the branch base
• And when cutting a twig, try to cut just above a side bud, and at the same slant as the bud
• Finally, use sharp tools, and make cuts that are clean, not ragged

These mechanics are also clearly depicted in the accompanying photos, and the technique can be kept as simple as that. 

I recommend a good pruning book to accompany the four prescriptions.  Find a book with numerous pictures, and a big species-by-species how-to list for the particular habits of our various woody plants.

Of course rules are made to be broken, and evergreens sometimes follow some slightly different protocols. More about pruning in the future, for sure. Otherwise, I think we’re ready to soak up some March sun, and give our yard its annual haircut.

And my own haircut?  Er, I can put that off until April, at least. 

P.S.: If you are interested in the biology behind proper cutting technique, find a book by Alex Shigo (he’s got a few, and they’re mostly interchangeable), or ask me, and I’ll blog about it.

Posted by Mark Bir

It is snowing again and winter drags on.  Yes, the days are growing longer, but –   Yes, the calendar promises spring soon, but—   —I am staring into the flat, gray panel of this day and see only dreary doubt.  More than warmth, more than sun rays, I am wanting for color.

Leafless and bright in contrast to grim sky, the Woodland Garden sycamore tree is wearing a Josephs’ coat for winter.  Its patchy bark is broken into individual flakes in satiny shades of olive, milky chartreuse, cinnamon, and pale ochre.  But the Garden specimen lacks the chalky white patches usual to our local sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) which suggests to me that it might be a plane tree, itself a hybrid of local sycamore and Asian sycamore (Platanus orientalis).  I will know more when it leafs out, and remember to post the answer here.

Extant since at least the 1800s, the plane tree is a salt- and soil-tolerant plant that thrives on the grit of city living, and proves it with a century of success beautifying the streets of Paris, London, and New York.  It is one of those trees that is ubiquitous in the image and experience of city life, and has been woven into the background cloth of our urban consciousness.  Severe and continual pruning is tolerated to the extent that the plane tree is widely trained into street-side topiary: witness the row of them flanking The Terrace; witness the double row reflecting in the Art Museum lagoon.

The native sycamore is a denizen of Ohio’s river bottoms, where life favors those who can outgrow the dangers of flood and ice.  Often clinging to collapsing mud banks, sycamores rocket up to the sliver of sky above the water, attain great height early, and save commensurate girth for later in life.   They are prolific seeders, and employ wind and water to spread their future.  Older survivors thicken and roughen and boast gashes like trophies in their trunks from annual warfare with river ice and the spring thaw.  And, if we don’t have one living on our ten acres, there are a few chalky-white native sycamores growing along M.L.K. Boulevard.

More color at the far end of the C.K. Patrick Walk.   An Asian spicebush (Lindera orientalis) there hangs bright, strappy leaves like feathers made of hammered copper.   The spicebush is dormant and deciduous, yet its leaves persist.  The leaves are dead but for the twig-end of their stems.  Their separation (due to abscission, a hormone-regulated, compartmentalized cell death and subsequent tissue separation) was halted last autumn and will be completed this spring, and there’s a 25-cent word for it: marcescence.  It is also common with many of our oaks (see them around Gateway) and young beech trees. If marcescence is considered a juvenile trait, I’ve met many mature oaks that would argue about that. With Asian spicebush it is complete and quite formal, for no leaves will drop until buds begin to swell.

More color.  Nearby, tucked in the Rose Garden border, grows a mass of evergreen azaleas.  The slender, hairy-like-a-fly leaves vary in color from earthy green to rust.  This variety, ‘Cascade,’  is necessarily a hybrid of Japanese azaleas, since all of North America’s are deciduous.  It has white flowers in spring, and golden leaves in autumn.  Curiously to me, white blooming evergreen azaleas have golden autumn foliage, and red-blooming have ruddy or bloody autumn foliage.  Evergreen azaleas are actually partially deciduous, and will lose less or more of their leaves from year to year, depending on each winter’s severity.

More color.   Still in the Rose Garden, the glossy evergreen leaves on a holly bush attract my attention.   In this light, they absolutely glow.   Holly is a tribe of (mostly) evergreen plants that inhabit North America, Europe and parts of Asia.   This one is an inkberry (Ilex glabra), and aptly bears black berries each autumn.  Like all hollies, plants are male or female, and both are needed to set fruit.  This Eastern U.S. native makes an interesting garden alternative in those places where you might usually plant a bay.   Prettiest in winter, inkberry is slow growing, soil tolerant and generally well-behaved.

The plant world exhibits a continuum of leaf habit from fully evergreen to fully deciduous.  Each variation is a particular tactic to a shared problem; water availability.    To plants it makes little matter if it is Cleveland’s winter drought, or Madagascar’s desert drought: to survive, they must lose leaves or waterproof leaves, or a little of both.

And to my delight, in battleship gray Cleveland, they do so in color.

Posted by Mark Bir
 
 

 …when we neglect to prune our trees.

Some trees need very little help to grow tall, straight and well-balanced. Others benefit from a little shaping. This weeping redbud needs a lot of “untangling” each winter with the help of my recently sharpened pruners.

I enjoy a good gnarly tree. Especially this time of year when the naked branching structure is fully exposed. The sculpted twists and turns don’t necessarily happen by accident. Pruning trees is an art, especially when dealing with the gnarly, twisting and weeping tree varieties.

Late winter is a great time to prune trees. By removing the end growth of a branch, you are forcing the side buds to take over. Redirecting growth is that simple.

It certainly helps to start with a young tree. There is usually enough growth from the previous season that there is no need to bend, wire or force branches to grow in a certain direction. Instead, simply encourage the new growth that you like and remove the rest. With a little vision, you can determine which branches will grow to become the beefy arms of the sculpture. Selectively thin out competing branches and make cuts each year to flex those arms in a manner that you find appealing.

When dealing with a tree that just wants to weep, consider allowing a few new shoots to grow upwards so that you can fold these twigs back over the tree to create a layering effect to the branching. Art is subjective. But the nice thing about this art form is that it is also alive. You can revisit your artwork every winter and change or improve upon it as you see fit.

Posted by Bob Rensel

There is light everywhere.  The sky is blinding-blue infinity. The snow draped across The Garden is as brilliant as  cut glass and gemstones. 

Twigs shimmer and glint like daggers flashing with flames. But it is really cold out this morning, somewhere around 10 F. With each of my steps, the snow squeaks underfoot. The air is dry as sandpaper and scrapes across my lips as I inhale.  Today is a contradiction in fire and ice.

“Crunch, crunch,” say my steps.  I pretend I’m not freezing, because the long dark is over and it’s a great day to prowl The Garden.

Our rhododendrons (Rhododendron cvs.) in The Japanese Garden look especially cold.  The leaves have pointed their tips toward the ground, and tightly curled themselves into green cigars. They’re huddling against the cold, in an effort to minimize evaporative water loss to the desiccated air.  When it warms up, the leaves will un-curl and stand up again.  They accomplish this directionless, or nastic, movement by draining and filling specialized elastic, temperature-sensitive motor cells, which pull the leaves along with them as they change shape.

Contrast nastic movement with tropic plant movements, where plants respond to stimuli by moving toward or away from their particular nudge.  Phototropism (light), gravitropism (gravity), thigmotropism (touch), and geotropism (earth) move leaves, stems and roots the directions they need to go. Their mechanisms are diverse, often complicated, and always fascinating; I’d like to promise more of this in a later blog. So, let’s not even mention animal and wind mediated movements, which make plants world travelers.

The little grove of hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis) just across the brook seems more obviously content with the cold.  Like the rhododendrons they are evergreen plants, but they employ another winter survival strategy.  First, their leaves are very tiny to limit surface area, and thus evaporative loss.  Second, their leaves are coated with a thick, resinous cuticle, which waterproofs just like the paraffin painted on our grocery-store rutabagas lately. Third, hemlock leaves have no pores on their upper surfaces, and only two rows on their undersides, those being nestled up against the mid-veins.

Fifty paces away, in the shade of the Woodland Garden hillside, a non-woody evergreen hides in the snow, the Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides).  I brush away some frost crystals, and there they are, clad in olive drab, waiting for April. They’re common in Ohio woods, and on days like this appear cheery and gay, climbing our ravines in little green armies.

With the frozen earth preventing water uptake, it is impossible for Christmas ferns to photosynthesize today.  So they wait, green and ready.  Plants that keep their leaves through the winter use a couple techniques to prevent living cells from freezing and bursting.  They move intracellular water just outside of their cells walls, where it safely freezes. This simultaneously concentrates the dissolved carbohydrate inside the cell, which then acts as antifreeze.  Green-in-winter plants also employ antifreeze proteins that bind water molecules and prevent them from crystallizing.

I make an about-face, toward the big tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) growing in the Woodland Garden.  Seventy-five feet above me its top branches bend and angle and stay substantial out to their twig-tips.  They are bearing erect seed clusters that glow orange in the light, and look like hundreds of sky candles burning to warm the frozen sun.  The individual seeds are spindled around central pins, and are upright and clasping like folded umbrellas.  The seeds not eaten by fox squirrels will break free one-by-one and flutter away on little wings.  All will be down by spring, leaving just the pins on the branches.

Fighting by not fighting, the tulip threw its leaves to the ground and drained its sap to the roots last autumn.  It stands today, visibly dormant and indifferent to winter…but not quite.  The mitten-shaped buds hold some living cells, quiet but alive, that wait beneath the protection of woody scales.  Come spring, they will burn stored starches pumped from below, grow out of their cocoons, and become summer’s leaves.

Fire and ice in the Gardens.  So beautiful, but I’m goin’ inside now—“crunch, crunch”–man, its cold out here.

Posted by Mark Bir