Posts Tagged ‘transplanted tree’
Unexplained Death
I am loath to admit what is daily becoming more apparent. The maple tree that I have been gushing about for the last seven years, transplanted from our woods as a sapling in the fall of 2016, is not showing any sign of life this spring.
We keep hoping beyond hope that the stunted little buds on the branches are just delayed, but the little branch I snapped off a few days ago didn’t offer much hope, with little in the way of green life showing.
My inner pessimist has me thinking my cocky decision to begin annually measuring the circumference of the trunk to track its growth brought on this outcome. What I don’t understand, among the many things I don’t understand, is how and why this is occurring so suddenly. I have watched a lot of trees die in my lifetime, and they usually show plenty of signs they are on the way out.
This is how that maple tree looked ten months ago:
The dang willow tree in the small paddock that I cut almost to a stump and has no reason to have any real future health has sprouted a surprising amount of new branches. If this maple is failing, couldn’t it at the very least pop out a few little attempts to get some nourishment from the sun?
In the spring of 2017, we draped a sheet over the delicate new transplant to protect it from freezing temperatures.
I am so very sad and disappointed. More importantly, I am at a loss as to what happened and what we might have been able to do differently to prevent this sudden failure. When we can muster the mental fortitude to take invasive steps to inspect the roots, we would hope to learn if there is rot. Did it get too much water? Did the lack of snow and hard, hard freezes last winter have this impact?
There are no signs of insect activity or any other visible fungus. All I have is the perception of full leaves last summer, a normal fall change of color and dropping of leaves, and tiny buds that stunted and stopped this spring. It feels like going from all to none.
It sucks. I’m heartsick over it. At this point, I’m not sure I even want to bother trying a fifth time for a tree in the center of the labyrinth garden.
Maybe it’s just dormant and will make a second attempt at leafing out. I could try cutting off the limbs like I did the willow tree and see if that makes it sprout new growth.
Instead, I plan to do nothing. It is what it is. I plan to sink my oodles of tree love into all the other wonderful volunteers around our property that we didn’t need to transplant, but now are being nurtured by protectively clearing around them and frequently monitoring their well-being.
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Underground Conversations
After listening to a Radiolab podcast Cyndie turned on while we were eating breakfast (From Tree to Shining Tree) about the complex web of fungi and tree roots underground, I decided to head out for a bike ride yesterday. I chose a route that retraced the last leg of the great 60-mile ride from Minneapolis to Beldenville that my friend, Paul Keiski and I planned in recognition of our 60th birthdays.
That last section always haunts me for the wrong turn I made that moved our 60-mile ride closer to a 70-mile one. I have a history of confusing my orientation and choosing turns that are 180° in the wrong direction. The right turn I made on that fateful day almost four years ago makes absolutely no sense. It was really hot and I was very fatigued but that turn should have been entirely obvious.
Every time I have ridden those roads since that day, I take great pleasure in making the correct turn without a moment of hesitation. Yesterday, I rode 32 miles of country roads past farms with freshly mowed grass, an occasional horse, and a lot of lounging cows. I spotted multiple patches of flowering trillium and a lot of trees with newly sprouted leaves.
There is so much happening in the plant world right now, I began to wonder about how many underground conversations must be occurring throughout the incredible network of roots and fungi in the dirt. How much energy must be traveling up all the countless number of tree branches during this phase when buds open and leaves emerge?
Our forests are starting to look like forests again.
Seeing all the leaves pop out tells me the network of underground communication must be functioning well in our woods. I’m particularly thrilled that the maple tree we transplanted to the center of the labyrinth (after our first three attempts failed) appears to have made the necessary underground connections to thrive.
I can’t imagine what those conversations must have been like. We plopped that tree into the ground in a location that isolated it from any other existing trees. At least, that’s the way it looked from above ground. Down in the dirt, I’m guessing there were more tentacles of growing roots and fungi than one might expect. Thank goodness for that if that’s what it took for this one to survive the trauma of being moved.
Thinking about this makes me want to take as much care to nurture our forest floor as I direct toward the trees above.
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Growing Hope
Our hope is growing for the maple tree we transplanted to the center of the labyrinth. If you are keeping score, this is the 4th time we have tried to move a maple sapling from beneath one of the character-filled old giants lining the driving path along the back pasture fence line.
This tree is currently holding its leaves longer into the summer than any of the previous attempts did. Between our extra effort and the favorable weather conditions this year, I’m finally allowing myself to hope this one will take, maybe even flourish!
It’s funny how much I want certain things to grow, while at the same time wishing others wouldn’t. It would be just great if the weeds currently sprouting in the hay-field would just take the rest of the summer off. I’d love it if the tree-climbing vines would cease and desist. And the poison ivy that is thriving here could make me very happy if it would just shrivel up and die.
Maybe I should try to transplant the things I don’t want. I could do a mediocre job and watch them wilt away.
Do plants fall for reverse psychology?
The growth along the fence lines has been neglected for too long and has become both a nuisance and an eyesore. Cyndie, back when she had the use of both arms, was doing a heroic job of landscape maintenance using the Stihl power trimmer. In her absence, the fence lines have been ignored, as I’ve been putting my focus on the lawn and the main part of the fields.
As it is, I haven’t even kept up with the fields. There is still one section of pasture that I haven’t cut all summer, and it has gotten about as overgrown as possible.
Even though I am behind on the mowing, it occurred to me last night that we shouldn’t feel too bad about the state of things. Over the last two weekends, we have given up over 4 days to entertainment activities which borrowed entirely from time I would have been tackling chores on the property.
It appears that I am my own worst enemy when it comes to interfering with my ability to get things done. I better review Wintervale’s time-off policy and see if there has been a violation of the guidelines.
Now, if I could only figure out where the HR department is around here…
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Maples Everywhere
Maybe we shouldn’t be trying so hard to get a maple tree to grow in the center of our labyrinth. In areas where we have put no effort to entice new maple trees, they are popping up like weeds! If we wait long enough, I’m sure the labyrinth will be filled with new volunteer maple saplings.
New maple trees are flourishing beneath the large poplar tree next to the shop.
Maples are sprouting among the ferns by the basement window.
They are rising from the perennial ground cover growing by the back fire pit.
Lastly, the new trail I opened up behind the woodshed looks like a nursery for maple trees.
If there is any justice in this world, the maples we have to remove due to their poor choice of root will be offset by one successful transplant taking hold where we want it to grow most.
Happily, this spring all signs are good that it has survived the winter with enough energy to sprout leaves. The next question enshrouding our hopefulness is, will the leaves survive the full length of summer?
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Taking Precautions
A few steps forward, and one giant leap back from spring. It is interesting how different 36° (F) can feel depending on whether arriving to it from above or below. When it has been below freezing for months, a day that reaches 36° can feel dramatically warm.
When it has recently been 70° outside, a dip down to 36° feels despicably cold. Same temperature, different perspective.
This morning feels despicable.
Up until now, I have been purposefully avoiding paying attention to the status of the tree we transplanted to the center of the labyrinth last fall. We’ve failed enough times before –three to be exact– that I’m attempting to avoid getting excited too soon.
A couple of days ago, Cyndie texted a picture of the many new leaves that have emerged. Time for my denial to end. With the threat of sub-freezing temperatures predicted, we felt it necessary to cover the sapling for protection from the cold.
It was a challenge, because the sprouts are so delicate that some dropped simply from the abuse of my clumsy attempt to get the sheet up and over the top.
Regardless, I feel better to have tried protecting it, than if we’d done nothing. I’ve watched too many of our other small trees with delicate early growth wither and die in the past two years when warm spring days were followed by hard freezes.
I’m hoping this tree turns out to be as robust as the ten chicks we ordered through the mail have proved to be.
I may be trying to protect myself from disappointment, but I won’t give up without doing everything I can to improve the odds of success. With the cold temperatures, the saturated wetness now, and the likely dry spells to come, we have our work cut out for us for many months ahead.
Here’s hope that our precautions pay off in every way.
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Boulders Rocking
While we were standing around the center of labyrinth Wednesday night, I glanced at the big boulders and immediately sensed something seemed different. One of them seems to be settling into an increased lean away from the other. It comes as no surprise, since the soil is so incredibly saturated around here. 
It has me wondering what it will be like this winter when the ground freezes. Will the excess water in the surface soil create more in the way of heaving? Could those boulders get pushed over on their sides?
Maybe when the tree finally gets established, we can get rid of the boulders altogether and let the maple take their place.
What do I mean by we ? By the time that happens, I probably won’t be around anymore and those decisions will likely be someone else’s to make.
For this moment, I am going to work on tending to the boulders to the best of my ability, while also finding a way to adjust my attitude so that I will accept the unexpected results that nature serves up.
I’m sure hoping that nature will serve up a healthy and vibrant transplanted tree. If that happens, I will find it much less concerning if/when the boulders shift into a new and different orientation from the one with which we started.
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Labyrinth Water
I only accomplished a short portion of my list of things deserving immediate attention yesterday. First and foremost, I completed the project to install a hose spigot for water to the labyrinth garden. Despite my 3 attempts to achieve a leak-free set of connections at the bottom of the hill, I quit while there remained a slow drip and deemed it good enough for now. Perfection isn’t everything, you know.
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If you look closely, you just might be able to spot the transplanted maple tree by the large rock at the center of the labyrinth. It appears to be holding its own in this first summer out in the open sunlight.
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Relative Something 