"...I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines." -Henry David Thoreau
This tree is a young Weeping Beech. In 1997 it was planted at the Cathedral in Garden City, L.I. as a memorial to my son Richard (1964-1982). My son's ashes were placed in the earth beneath the tree. The ash becomes earth and the tree is nourished by that earth. It should reach a height of fifty feet and it's branches will reach out from the trunk in a fifty foot sweep. It is the final resting place for my son and it should live on for centuries. We visit the tree often.—Richard Duvall
I am asking friends and strangers to use words or pictures, or both, to let me know about a tree that matters to them. It might be a locust tree that you pass every day on your commute or a Japanese maple outside your kitchen window. It could be a fruit tree that gave you something good to eat, a beech you remember climbing with your friends as a kid, or a felled tree that you milled for lumber or cut up for firewood to keep you warm one winter. Stories and pictures can be from the past or present. Whether it's just a line, or a few paragraphs, try to let us know the kind of tree it is, where it is or was growing, how old it might be, and its circumstances. Send stories and pictures to me at johnduvall@mac.com and I will share them here.
When I got out of high school I started working as a climber for an established tree care company on Long Island. I learned to climb, prune, cable, feed, plant, and transplant trees. I spent a lot of time in a lot of trees back then, and ever since my respect for them has grown. We owe trees a lot, and we don't think about them enough. That's why I started this blog.