Growing On

Picture this, from fifteen years ago. Nicole and Ross had a mass planting of yews original to their house right up against the foundation of the right side of the house, and enclosing the front porch. They had gotten large and leggy,  as yews frequently do. The house has a distinctively low and wide profile that was overwhelmed by all those yews. The house could barely breathe. The only other landscape elements existing were trees-a large gleditsia, or honey locust, and a very large and imposing American elm.

I told them we could move the yews away from the front porch and foundation, and plant them in a spot that would provide a little privacy from to their front porch and door without looming over them. I couldn’t wait to dig them out and move them. We also removed the concrete sidewalk that came from the drive, and ran along the near foundation to the front porch. We closed off that side entrance to the front door by moving one of the iron panels from the center front of the porch to the side. I envisioned a new walkway that would lead visitors to the middle front of the porch, placing them face to face with the front door.

There would be some private space in front of the porch. The trunk of the big honey locust  would provide a sculptural element.

 

The front yard was a large grassy area completely open to the street. Those yews were all different sizes and heights, but we hoped to groom and prune them to encourage them to grow better at the ground level in the future. In an effort to speed up the process, we installed parallel row of new and smaller yews on the inside, to hide the bare legs you see in the picture above. We planted boxwood next to the foundation of the house. This smaller growing evergreen would not overpower their low slung house or windows. Foundation plantings need to be respectful of the architecture that sits on that foundation. A landscape should feature the most prominent feature, not engulf it. The location of these yews had everything to do with a capped pipe sticking up out of the grass – flagged in the above picture.  It could not be moved or removed, so we landscaped to disguise it.

At the end of this renovation, we installed a stone walkway with concrete tiles, running in front of an old cedar adjacent to the drive. I placed and planted a fern leaf beech in the lawn, and a tricolor beech to the right of the picture window. It did not seem like much at the time, but growing time would favor what had been done.

A month ago they called.  Everything had grown a lot, and some things not so much-could I come and take a look. The boxwood had grown so much that the stone path to the front door looked and functioned more like bed edging. The big honey locust had gotten a lot bigger, meaning that moss had all but overtaken the grass and the stone landing in front of the porch. The tricolor beech had grown in handsomely.

The interior row of smaller yews had not fared so well.  The shade from the locust, beech, and the old yews had about done them in. Even though the original yews were as leggy as ever, they now completely blocked the view of the front yard.

The American elm is now of enormous size. It must be better than 80 feet tall, and the canopy casts an enormous amount of shade in all directions. To the left in this picture, a white pine that had also grown out over the lawn.  Behind the white pine, a huge branch of the honey locust hanging over the yews.

The south face of the yews was more than decent, as it had much better light. They had grown several feet taller, and they did a great job of screening the pipe.

But the house side view presented a much bleaker picture.Yews are amazingly shade tolerant, but there is a limit to what they can take. A number of the smaller ones had been pruned, or browsed to death by deer. The arborvitae at the end of the yews was in much the same shape-too much shade for too long had taken its toll. It was too big and in too poor a shape to make it worthwhile to move.

It did not take long to get those yews out. Nor did it appear that something was missing from the landscape. The shade has become a major element of the landscape. The trees and the shade-atmospheric.

The biggest surprise was the fern leaf beech.  That 4 foot tall tree had grown incredibly tall and wide in 15 years. It seemed like the landscape needed little beyond what the beautiful trees were already doing there.

The trees are large enough now to provide some privacy from the road, and frame the view out to the treed lot across the street.  There is a long view now from the house, out.  We did add enough soil to level the ground, and we seeded the area with a sun-shade grass mix. However, I feel sure that the moss will reclaim the area from the grass in short order.

We enlarged the sidewalk by 18″ from the drive to the porch terrace. Once we got close to the locust, we quit digging for a base for the stone. I had no intentions of cutting into the surface roots of the tree. We had some flagstone stockpiled at the landscape yard that was a pretty good match.  Once the surface of the stone ages, and the moss fills the gravel joints, it will be difficult to tell that the walk had ever been disturbed.

The view from the drive is inviting. The wider walkway makes it possible for two people to walk side by side.

The landscape lights were readily relocated, as were a trio of vintage concrete mushrooms.  They have taken on the job of screening the pipe in the grass.The tricolor beech, and a pair of vintage stone ravens on pedestals are beautiful and distinctive.

The view from the street will be greatly improved once their arborist comes to cut the dead wood out of the locust, and the suckers from the base of that incredible elm.  The lower trunk of that elm is spectacular, and will easily be seen from the walk and the street. I know my clients will continue to take great care of all of their trees. The healthy American elm is ample evidence of that.

 

Planting A Tree

the tricolor beech (2)The very first tree I ever planted was a gingko.  My Mom and I, with not much discussion or ceremony, planted 10 seeds in small plastic pots. As I was probably 7 years old, it never occurred to me to ask where she got the seed. As she was a fairly reserved parent, there was no presentation about how to successfully grow trees from seed, or why growing a tree from a seed was a worthwhile and satisfying use of one’s time. Or that trees in general are one of the great wonders of the natural world.  I do remember that only one seed germinated.  That pot was buried in the rose garden for several years, until that gingko was about 15″ tall.  I watched her dig up a patch of grass in the side yard. In the process of getting the gingko out of the pot, I knocked all the soil off of the roots. I was horrified-I thought I had killed it.  She just scooped up that bareroot tree, and planted it in one fell swoop-the entire planting took but seconds. I would be in charge of the water to that tree for years to come. Once I turned 13, I had to be sent to the tree to water.  Once I turned 16, my attitude shifted. There was a lot of satisfaction to watching that tree grow-and grow it did.  By the time I went to college, it was a proper tree, a young but substantial element of our suburban landscape.

the tricolor beech (3)My Mom moved while I was in college, closer to the school where she taught.  I would eventually move near her.  That gingko tree was on its own, on the other side of town. If I ever had cause to drive from the west to the east side, I would go to see the tree.  It would always be there, just a little bit larger than the last trip. Gingkos are slow growers. Several weeks after she died, I went to see the tree. It was a comfort to me, that 45 year old tree, living and growing. It was such a beautiful tree, all on its own, set in the lawn. 10 years after she died, I went to see the tree, but it was gone. There was no sign it had ever been there. The shock and the grief  was unsettling. Every gardener has a hefty respect and affection for trees.

the tricolor beech (4)My second tree planting was in my twenties.  I was visiting a friend in Kalamazoo.  We were both gardeners, so a good part of every visit was consumed visiting nurseries. One nursery had a tall adolescent tulip tree in an undersized pot, with one green and orange “tulip” blooming at the top.  I had to have that tree. The leaf shape was so beautiful!  I drove that tree home in my pickup truck, and hauled it all over my property until I decided where to plant it. I chose a place where it would be free to grow as big as it could.  I was unaware that liriodendron are tap rooted, and very difficult to transplant.  I stripped the sod from the spot, dug down deep, and amended the heavy clay soil, and put that tree in the ground. I kept it watered without any coaching.  Miraculously, it took hold.  There were never any more tulips as long as I lived there. When I moved 15 years later, it was just beginning to put on weight.  I know better now than to go back.  I prefer to believe it is still there, growing taller and bigger every year.

the tricolor beech (5)I was working for Al Goldner, at Goldner Walsh Nursery, when I had occasion to plant my third tree. He had a dawn redwood that had lost its leader. It was header for the compost pile. When I asked him if I could take it home, he only said that the tree would never be right without its leader.  Plant it I did, in a swampy spot where it grew every bit of 18 inches a year.  Its shape was definitely asymmetrical, but it had a strange and atypical beauty that enchanted me. My fourth tree was a London Plane that had not been sold, but needed to go in the ground. Al gave that tree to me as well.  It was so large that it took me days to dig the hole. I needed every friend I had to help me roll it in the hole.  It took years before that tree took hold, and started to grow.  My property was almost 5 acres.  I had plenty of room for trees. I was beginning to understand a few things about planting them.

the tricolor beech (6)Over the course of my career, I have planted a lot of trees. Under story, or smaller growing trees are easy to place in just about any landscape. Their mature size is friendly and companionable with perennial gardens and shrubs, and smaller urban properties. The variety of species and cultivars available at nurseries is extensive. A gardener would need a very large property to grow one of every tree available in commerce. Trees are grown and sold in a variety of sizes.  The modest cost of a small tree in a pot makes it possible to plant a grove. My company rarely handles a tree with a root ball over 40 inches in diameter.  A root ball this size will weigh almost 1000 pounds. Some nurseries grow very large specimen trees. Luckily there exists sophisticated technology, and expert large tree movers such as GP Enterprises, that permits moving and replanting very large trees.

the tricolor beech (7)A tree spade is a flat bed truck, outfitted with a hydraulically powered set of four blades that can remove a cone shaped mass of soil 10′ in diameter, and better than 6 feet deep.  The spade can likewise dig a large tree, and transport it horizontally on the truck bed to a replanting location. A 5 inch caliper tree – the caliper being the diameter of the trunk 6 feet from the ground – will require a 5 foot diameter root ball to insure a successful transplant.  A 5′ diameter root ball weighs about 2800 pounds. We are in the process of installing a landscape on a very large property.  Big trees will help to provide a sense of scale and age to the landscape. This tricolor beech is 35 years old.  It is possible to move a tree of the age, as it has been root pruned, dug and moved a number of times at the nursery. Moving a tree from the wild would of the age would be much more difficult.

new beech (2)No matter the size, moving a tree is never easy. Every balled and burlapped tree has had many roots critical to its health and well being cut off in the process of making it movable. A large canopy tree with an abruptly reduced root system will suffer transplant shock, until enough roots grow back to adequately support the life of that canopy. It will take a year for every inch of caliper for that tree to recover sufficiently to begin growing again.  A one inch caliper tree will resume growing after one season in the ground.  A ten inch caliper tree will take 10 years to become completely established.

new beech (1)This tricolor beech has a very good new home. It was transplanted with a good deal of care.  It is planted in a space where it has plenty of room to grow. Best of all, there is a committed client who will not only truly enjoy it,  they will look after it as it should be.