Tree Surgery
I have always been a tree guy as long as I can remember. I have mentioned my favorite tree painting before. I bought it about twenty-five years ago at a Private Banking gathering I attended in Punta del Este. The way to create buzz and cause gatherings to happen in the high net worth banking business is to do the things that people of means like doing and then invite them to attend. This particular gathering was organized by a banker who worked for me and who particularly enjoyed art. So, she invited some of the most prominent Argentine and Uruguayan artists to display and explain their work to about fifty wealthy people from all over the world that liked being in Punta del Este, the Latin American playground for the rich and famous during January and February high season. There was an artist there called Claudio Rikelme. he was born in 1933, so at that time he was in his early 60s and must now be about 90. His style of painting is called abstract Impressionism with a particular penchant for the images of trees on the Pampas of Patagonia. I have found several of his painting online and note that they are always about trees and loneliness in one form or another. I bought one of his paintings, called Solo en la Immensidad (Alone in the Vastness) and it is simply a lone tree of some unspecified sort standing by itself on a hill on the Pampas. I figure its a classic Rikelme oil on canvas about 1.5 x2 feet in dimension in a moderately ornate frame. In some ways, that painting helped me define myself in my adult life. It is less about being lonely and more about being strong enough to provide an ecosystem to those I care about, just like the lone tree does on the Pampas.
That’s a heavy load to lay on a simple tree, but then, having read all about the hidden life of trees and the way their root systems and their impulses, not to mention the help of various fungi allow trees to communicate and simply commune and support one another, maybe its not so much after all. Then last week I read about Pando, that thicket of aspen trees in the Fishlake Mountains of Utah, that form the largest living thing on the planet, and that just brought the tree thing back front and center.
Back here on my hillside this week, since I am locked down with my COVID quarantine, I am in search of things to occupy myself. Trees seem to be on my mind. To start with, I have these two pieces of red cedar tree trunk that I am starting to carve into the totem pole faces that I plan to stack and then put a carved wooden soaring screech owl on top of. I’m taking my time with the carving since I’ve never done it before. I’m using a Dremel with various carving and sanding attachments and a set of specialty carving files that help with the shaping. I have no instruction manual for all this so I am just figuring it out on my own as I go. I did use YouTube to select the wood, but I haven’t tried to watch carving videos, preferring to find my own way of doing this. There is something intriguing to me about creating this carving in my own way, so I plan to just take it slow and see what develops.
While sitting in my garden watering my bonsai trees, I sat staring at the Irish Strawberry tree that I had planted two years ago. It was quite an ordeal planting a tree with a 6-foot boxed root ball in a spot that was hard to reach from the driveway. The guys from Moon Valley Nurseries, who charged me an arm and a leg for the tree and its planting, really earned their keep on that tree because they had to use an extended-arm crane that could barely squeeze through the gap of the house and the garage. It took six laborers to dig the hole and jimmy the tree into the hole. I must admit I was somewhat afraid for those laborers since one slip or tip of that crane and they would have had a two-ton tree on top of them while they waited for it in the hole they dug. Once it was put in I felt it was too leafy and I had the guys trim up the lower branches. The trunk of this Arbutus Unedo is a lovely red bark that is quite beautiful and different and I wanted to be able to see it. Now, as I look at the tree, it seems healthy, but it sure has thinned out in two years. I particularly notice it in the lower branches. Strangely enough, what I had once asked to see more of I now wonder if I am seeing too much.
The trees on my property that don’t seem to have any trouble whatsoever taking care of themselves like that lonely tree on the Pampas in Rikelme’s painting are the Live Oaks and the Manzanitas. They are both lovely and wild trees that are indigenous to the chaparral. I am particularly fond of the Manzanitas with their reddish gnarly trunks that artfully reach for the sky, but only make it about fifteen feet high at most. I now have ten Palo Verde trees, having planted four of them since arriving here. These airy verdant trees are interesting in that they are green from the bottom of the trunk right to the tip of the smallest branch. They are also covered regularly with little lemon yellow flowers. The best part about Palo Verdes is just like the Live Oaks and Manzanitas, and that is that they seem to be made for this dry and sunny climate and they pretty much take care of themselves after their roots have established themselves.
Besides all the indigenous trees, I have added others like the Arbutus that don’t come from these environs. The most notable one is a specimen Madagascar Bottle Tree or Boabab. It frames our patio. It has a very unusual “Dr. Zeus” look about it with a bulbous trunk and delicate waterfall branches and leaves. It is such a unique tree that gardeners who visit are taken with it and can’t take their eyes off of it. The best I can tell, it has been on the property for twenty or so years and seems to be thriving. Strangely enough, it troubles me that the tree seems somewhat off-cycle with the seasons. It loses its leaves in May and sprouts its new leaves in June. The first time it did this I was scared that the tree was ailing, but then it came back so quickly with not so much as a “How do you do.” I also planted a Crepe Myrtle down by the entrance and for two years I have been waiting for it to show me that it has stabilized and I can’t say that I’m confident that it has.
That has all made me wonder where I can get some tree advice. I know who to call to get the trees pruned or cut down, but most tree services are set up for labor-intensive work like that rather than shelling out advice. So, I did some internet research and found that there is something called a consulting arborist and they are certified by a national arborist association. Sure enough, one of these guys exists in Escondido. I have hired him to come by next week and advise me on my trees. He has given me two hours of his time at a one-hour rate so long as I don’t need a follow-up email. It seems he hates to write, and that works just fine for me. I don’t need a tree book and I don’t need tree surgery, I just need good tree advice.