Big Tree
I have written many times about my fascination with trees. Last year I read (or more accurately, listened to) several books about trees and their hidden lives through their root systems and through the fungi that help them communicate with one another. I also recently wrote about hiring a local Consulting Arborist to advise me about my various trees on my property and how best to care for them. I only had him consult on my full-sized trees, of which there are a dozen or so varieties on my hillside. But I also took up a fascination several years ago with Bonsai trees and now have approximately twenty of them in my garden and on my patio. Some of those Bonsai are truly miniature trees, while some of them are really just succulents that look like miniature trees. The ones that I take particular pride in are the ones that really are small trees, constrained in their growth by the size of their pots and by regular pruning. I like to remind people that the Japanese word Bonsai means tree in a small pot. While it is a traditionally Japanese art form, it is derived from an old Chinese horticultural practice which got adopted as part of the Zen Buddhist form of meditation. The art form got a huge boost in America from the 1984 classic movie, The Karate Kid, when Pat Morita, playing Mr. Miyagi teaches Ralph Macchio the Zen of patience by showing him how to trim a Bonsai tree.
One of my favorite Bonsai trees is a small stand of three California Redwood trees that have flourished in my garden. The Redwood or Sequoia Sempervirens is the only species of Cyprus Sequoia that still exists and it flourishes in the Northern California area near Arcata, California. These are the tallest living species of tree and can reach a height of 379 feet above ground, with similarly deep root structures. Their trunks can be up to thirty feet in diameter. They are evergreen trees technically, but I have noticed that my Redwoods do lose and replenish their leaves annually for some reason.
My nephews Will and Josh (technically, Kim’s nephews) are affectionately known in the family as The Gibronis. I coined that term for them because it was a term used in the old Tarzan movies for a tribe of Africans that were somewhat dim-witted though well-meaning. I like to think of it as a term of endearment for my two nephews, who are both very tall (6’4” and 6’6” respectively) and tip the scales collectively at over 600 pounds. In their youth, when they hung out at our New York City apartment and would take home plastic bags of leftovers from our weekly feeding, they just struck me as very Gibroni-like. If you look up the term Gibroni, you will quickly go to the term Jabroni, which is a popularized pro wrestling term, commonly attributed to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. While the etymological roots of the two words seem to differ, the ultimate meaning of a large, hulking figure remains the same and still seems to apply when referring to my two rugby-playing nephews.
The Gibronis in my family do not hail from Africa, but did spend their college years attending Humboldt College (technically Cal-Poly Humboldt) in Arcata, California. Therefore, when I think of them, I think of the mighty Redwood trees indigenous to that area. When I first got my Redwood Bonsai tree, I showed it to Josh and he was quite taken with it. So, I bought and sent him his own Redwood Bonsai as a gift. Josh now lives in Pasadena, that polished suburb of Los Angeles. When I went to visit him after sending him his Redwood gift, I was surprised to see that he had ignored my commentary about Bonsai being the art of growing a miniature or dwarf variety of a tree in a small flat pot. He had done exactly what a Gibroni might do, he set his trees free by replanting them first in a larger pot to give them room to grow and eventually into the ground where they could presumably attain their own manifest destiny. I didn’t bother to tell him that Sequoia Sempervirens are not indigenous south of Monterrey County, but I’m not sure that would have stopped him. His expectation is that he will eventually have a 379 foot monster growing in his back yard. If it reaches its natural limits of thirty feet in trunk diameter, that will take up approximately one half of the width of his property in Pasadena and make for quite a display in that otherwise understated community.
On the theme of Big Trees, one of the things that my Consulting Arborist told me was that my specimen Queensland Bottle Tree, which I used to think was a Madagascar Bottle Tree and which is, indeed, a Brachychiton Rupestris, is the largest recorded specimen of that variety in the United States. That was interesting news since I always knew it was an important specimen, but had no idea that it was a record-setter. There is a similar Queensland Bottle Tree in Balboa Park in San Diego, but while that tree is taller than mine, mine has it beat in trunk diameter. And, after all, it is not the tree height that distinguishes the bottle tree, but the odd and bulbous trunk that makes it stand out. Apparently, my tree will get recorded in the Big Tree Project annals now and there may even be some sort of ceremonial certificate issued. I cannot take credit for choosing or planting the tree, since it was on my hilltop when I bought it ten years ago. I will take credit for taking good care of it since I had irrigation put around it and that may have helped it grow since the trunk is a means of water storage for the harsh arid climates where it tends to be found.
I was told recently by the woman who is the supposed Succulent Queen of Southern California that I have the “Best” succulent garden in San Diego. Once again, while I have maintained and added to the succulent garden planted here by the previous owner, Elizabeth Crouch, I really must credit her with the establishment of the garden and can only take credit for not screwing it up over the last ten years. As for the bottle tree, I do not know whether she planted it or the owner before her. It is most likely at least twenty-five years old so it has been here a good long time and as long as the property has been in cultivation. I know that Brachychiton Rupestris live to be 150 years old, so I am expecting this record-setting specimen to be here long after I have sold this property to the next owner. So while Josh is growing his Big Tree in Pasadena, I will continue to grow my Bonsai and my Big Tree on my little hilltop.