Plant a Tree

The last day in April is Arbor Day, which gives me an excuse to talk about trees.  Of all the plant categories – vegetables, flowers, herbs, vine, shrubs, trees – my favorite is trees.  My happiest moments in childhood were those spent climbing trees,  sitting on their sturdy branches surveying the world below and eating their luscious offerings of plums and cherries.

I inherited my love of trees from my mother, who planted them as compulsively as a dog buries bones.  When I was in college I heard a commercial on the radio advertising a Mother’s Day bargain – 200 tree seedlings for $5.95. Knowing my mother’s tree mania, I ordered them without a thought of the job I was handing my mother.

I rarely did anything that pleased my mother, but that present was a fantastic success, despite the agony that resulted from Mom’s marathon race to plant them all.  She was thrilled with all the varieties – tulip tree, smoke bush, yellowwood, ironwood, many of which still grace the family property.

Planting a tree on Arbor Day was started by J. Sterling Morton in 1872 in a state with a scarcity of trees, Nebraska.  There it is a legal holiday so everyone has time to dig a hole and plant something in it.  Here in the East we don’t pay much attention to Arbor Day.  My husband’s family preferred a different tradition, the custom of planting a “Life Tree” for each child the spring after it was born.

Watching a foot-high “whip” turn into a strong-limbed giant is almost as satisfying as raising a child, and far less work.  Trees have very few childhood diseases and don’t move away when they’re full-grown either.  Of course you may move way, as we did, leaving the life trees of our three daughters behind.

Hank’s mom and dad planted a butternut tree to celebrate his coming into the world.  Hank and Butternut grew up together, both breaking limbs frequently, and both looking pale and sickly from October until June.  Each in his own way was extremely untidy; Hank trailing clothes and toys in his wake.  Butternut dropping oily nuts covered with thick sickly husks in August that made the lawn mower shudder each time it tried to gobble them up.

A butternut tree’s compound leaves are similar to those of sumac, but they turn a spotty, washed-out yellow in the fall instead of the vibrant crimson of sumac.  They fall to the ground early, usually leaving a poorly shaped skeleton to decorate the landscape. 

When Hank and I moved into his family guest cottage after we were married, we inherited Butternut,  as it resided on our front lawn.  Unfamiliar with the life tree tradition, I suggested to Hank that we get rid of this homely free.  Since Hank had forgotten it was his life tree, he got the axe.

Young George Washington probably chopped down the cherry tree as gleefully as we did the butternut, but his father’s wrath couldn’t have been as hard to face as my mother-in-law’s anguish when she saw little Hankie’s life tree lying dead on the lawn.  Fortunately Mosie was a marvelous mother-in-law, soon admitting she’d never liked the scraggly old butternut either.

When we moved to Locust Hill we left behind all three daughters’ life trees.  The farm had few trees in the yard other than locusts when we moved in.  There was a weeping willow that we discovered had a hollow heart when it fell over in a big snowstorm our first winter here.  There was a very large Norway spruce which blocked all winter sun from the bedroom.  We cut it down when the little silver maple we’d dug up from the woods and planted under it got to be 15 feet tall and began to bend over to get some sun.

The third tree in the yard was a young sugar maple, its trunk about as big around as a gallon jug.  It grew as fast as the current national debt in the first years we were here because, unknown to us, our septic system did not include a septic tank and suddenly a family of five was feeding the maple tree on a daily basis.  Now that beautiful tree is dying and no tree specialist knows why.  My plan to have them cut down the poor thing this past winter, but the pond, where it had to land, never froze sufficiently

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As you can see, I planted a replacement, a silver maple, to take the sugar maple’s place.  It’s just starting its third year, but is living a hazardous life as branches, bark and even big limbs come crashing down whenever there’s a little wind. 

I was planning to recommend a variety of trees you might plant on Arbor Day, but as usual, I got waylaid with my personal experiences.  There are dozens of reasons to plant a tree besides commemorating a child’s birth.  Plant a beautiful Kousa dogwood with its layers of white blossoms each spring.  How about a fruit or nut tree to provide September edibles and spring blossoms to make bouquets for the house? 

The locust pictured above was the only photo I had of a tree and even though it fills the air with perfume in May when its white petals resemble a small snow storm as they drift down to the ground, I wouldn’t recommend planting one.  Its limbs look positively tortured in winter and it provides very little shade in summer.  Its one virtue is that its leaves disappear each fall without needing to be raked. 

I hope you’ll look around your hard and realize there’s a perfect spot for a new tree, then pour over the catalogs (http://www.musserforests.com/  tel 800-64739893 is a good one), and picture what a graceful weeping willow or a white pine, or…  whatever you decide.  There’ll be a nice reward as you watch it grow.

The First Spring Edible



What a silly little snow we had last week, but it was hard on all the brave baby crocus blooms and eagerly dancing  daffodils who were fooled by the weather. One plant that had no trouble with that bit of white stuff, however, was the rhubarb pictured above, which pops up even faster than asparagus each spring.

I’ve always considered rhubarb a fruit, but even Webster  admits that there’s no clear distinction between fruits and vegetables.  “It has been held by the courts that all those which, like potatoes, carrots, peas, celery, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. that are eaten (whether raw or cooked) during the principal part of a meal are to be regarded as vegetables, while those used only as dessert are fruits.” (The Judiciary worries about such mundane things??)

Botanically speaking, rhubarb is not a  fruit, which is the mature ovary of a flower.  An apple is a pome fruit, a peach a drupe fruit, and a tomato is actually a berry fruit.  But looked at it that way, cucumbers, squash, peppers and eggplants are all fruits, not vegetables.  Brussels sprouts are buds, broccoli is an immature flower and rhubarb, like celery, is a stem.

Whether rhubarb is a fruit or a vegetable is immaterial when it comes to raising a plant or two in the backyard. They are very undemanding plants, requiring hardly any effort on the part of the gardener.  Since rhubarb seeds rarely produce plants true to type, the easiest way to propagate this perennial is the same way you would a peony – by finding a friend willing to divide one of her plants to give you  a piece of the rhizome full of new buds called  “eyes.”

Unlike peonies, however, which should be divided in September, the best time of year to start rhubarb is early spring.   The roots should be planted so that the red-budded crowns are just below the surface, If planting more than one, give each at least a four foot space, and spread a nice layer of well-rotted manure (or some 5-10-5 fertilizer) around each clump as they are greedy feeders. 

Pick a spot in full sun, but don’t plant your rhubarb in the vegetable garden where their roots may be disrupted by the rototiller.  And don’t put them where you may decide to eventually put the swimming pool or the tennis court when you can afford one, as these perennials are truly perennial, lasting for years.

You can start harvesting a few stalks the second year.  Grasp a stalk near its base and twist it away from the plant rather than cutting it. Leave the thin stalks and the tough outer ones to feed the rhizome.  When your peas are ready to pick, stop harvesting your rhubarb.  If you don’t grow peas… well, you really ought to.  Fresh peas are delicious.

The rhubarb flower stalk with its huge panicle of tiny flowers often grows taller than a man.  Garden books recommend cutting it down before it blooms as it supposedly limits the harvest.  I let mine bloom every year and always have a bountiful harvest.   

Rhubarb is a native of Tibet.  When it was first introduced to the western world a few cooks served up the leaves instead of the stems.  Many funerals followed as the foliage contains large amounts of oxalic acid, a substance poisonous to humans and animals.   I remember one spring when our sheep escaped from their pasture and were busy eating the newly sprouted rhubarb leaves.  They were staggering around, obviously feeling terrible, but fortunately had not eaten enough to keel over and die.

I’m not fond of rhubarb, but Hank adored it and froze a large quantity each year.  One summer several of my relations and I decided to hold a family reunion.  I had envisioned inviting just our generation and our children, but my cousins wanted to include all our relations, going back to our great grandfather Henry Robinson. 

When the party grew to over 100 participants, we chose to roast a pig for the event. Unfortunately it was the wrong time of year for fresh applesauce, a must as a condiment for roast pig, so our solution was to buy canned applesauce and combine it with Hank’s frozen rhubarb.  It was quite tasty, but as I stood in line with my empty plate, I overheard a small boy whisper to his equally small friend, “Skip the applesauce.  It’s really stringy!”