Elm Trees

I never had an elm tree. As a little girl, my wife had five large elms in her back yard in West Haven, CT. All were lost to Dutch elm disease in the 1950s, so I never saw them. I know elm trees are very tall and graceful, making them choice shade trees. I know that what killed most of them was a fungus carried by the Dutch elm bark beetle. Once under the bark the fungus grew in the tiny vessels carrying water and nutrients to the tree, clogging them and slowly “suffocating” the tree. DDT was used to control the beetle but was found to contaminate the surrounding environment, killing other species as well, so it was banned in the 1970s. On the positive side, I know that a few elms were genetically resistant to the fungus and survived. Today one can obtain a resistant elm from a nursery which maintains them. If interested, you can find one online. If I had a big house with a big yard I'd look into getting one. I wrote the following poem a few years ago as my own ode to those elms which were lost.

DUTCH ELM DISEASE

My vessels clogged by fungus foul

My leaves like tears I shed

For once you've got Dutch elm disease

You may as well be dead

—Peter Graves

Tree House

We had a large flowering cherry in the back yard at 45 Locust Street in Garden City, Long Island. We moved in during the winter of 1963 and the next spring my father, brother, and I decided to construct a tree house in the cherry tree. The tree’s trunk divided into two large limbs about three feet off the ground. We picked a spot where the limbs leveled off about twenty feet off the ground for the tree house. We purchased two fifteen feet logs at the lumberyard, hoisted them into the tree running from one limb to the other parallel to the ground. So as not to hurt the tree we lashed them around the limbs with hemp rope. The two logs were now level in the tree, and we nailed planks every six inches across the logs. We had our tree house – safe, hidden, secure, and towering above the rest of the neighborhood.

—Dana O'Brien

Chinese Pistache (Pistacia Chinensis)

This Chinese Pistache tree is growing in our front yard. The tree is at least 50 years old—probably older and has been part of our family since we moved here 26 years ago. Rick's grandfather built the house in 1940 and said the majority of the trees were "planted" by the birds. We assume it was a gift from the birds or squirrels. When our children were little we would hide easter eggs in the boughs and around the base, hang Christmas lights and ornaments from the lower branches. It has also served as the final resting place of our most favorite cats who were laid to rest at the base of the tree as this was their favorite place to pass hot summer days. It's funny how something can stir up sweet memories.

—Sue Giari

Little Yew

Two days ago I found this posting on Craigslist NYC. The tree was growing in a Brooklyn back yard and needed to be removed.

Free little PINE TREE
You can have this little conifer for free! But you have to help me dig it out. It has grown too big for my backyard. I've seen this variety used in hedges, and I've also seen them growing freely and reaching heights of 40 feet and maybe more. This one is only 7 feet tall. Bring a strong bag for the roots. Today, with the help of a friend, we dug it and moved it to a location where we hope it will thrive for many years. —John

Weeping Hemlock in the Snow

So I stayed at your folks' B&B and your dad mentioned this GIGANTIC weeping hemlock. Off we went in a snowstorm, my wife and I, to see it. The next day, yesterday, I took some photos.
—Matthew Meltzer, www.drivingAcar.com

Richard's Tree

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

Tangled Branches

Courtesy of www.sensitivelight.com

Jose

In 1968 a small pine tree growing at our house in Huntington, NY had a severely broken branch. My sister mended it with popsicle sticks. Two years later, the tree was dug up and taken to my parents new home in Connecticut. At that time, my sister named the tree "Jose."

Many years later it had outgrown its new home and had to be chopped down. Underneath we found three healthy saplings. Two were moved away from the corner of the house and the third was moved to our home on Long Island. When it was about three feet tall, we moved to upstate NY and took "Jose Junior" with us. It is now 7 feet tall and has become our outdoor Christmas tree. It seems to love its new home and we love it.
—Wendy Duvall

White Pine

Ever since I was young, I would climb trees. I was a nervous kid. Nervous & quiet. I worried about everything. I was afraid everyone would die. That I would be all alone. I would go up in the big white pine tree and just sit (this calmed me down). Later I worked with an arborist, he taught me how to climb trees professionally. I've been an arborist ever since. I'm now 50 years old. A lot of the people I worried about dying did. But I still have the trees.—Paul Silk

The Queen's Garden

I visit Windsor Great Park (the Queen's back garden in the UK) very frequently and love wandering through the trees there. However I have a particular favourite tree that I am convinced helps me focus when I am feeling down. It is a grand old Oak tree and is the oldest in the park. I am not sure of it's exact age but it must be well over 500 years old considering it's size. Whenever I touch it I feel an energy which always helps to revive me. I love it! I often sit snuggled into it's trunk, some people who walk by must think I am quite mad - but I don't care! I have a picture of it on my cell phone and will try and download it onto my work PC and send on to you. —Wendy Girtley, UK

Pierre's Tree

When I was in my early twenties, I rented a small house from a man named Pierre. The house was in a cul-de-sac. He owned all of the surrounding homes. When Pierre learned that I did tree work, he asked me to cut down a twenty-foot Evergreen because it stood too close to one of his buildings. It was a Yew, a favorite of mine. I suggested that he might move the tree and use it to screen a busy road. I said it would cost $75 to cut the tree down and $150 to move it. I was young and enthusiastic. Pierre saw that and the value of the tree. It was fall, and the Yew was dug by hand, pulled from the ground with block and tackle, pushed up a ramp by four pairs of hands, and driven forty feet to its new home. This took two days. Twenty five years later the tree is strong and beautiful. It's probably over 60 years old now.
—John Duvall

Tree on the Way Home from the Library

When I was about 7, living in the East Bronx, in 1945, I would take my weekly Saturday hike to the Washington Avenue branch of the neighborhood public library. I don’t know how I crossed those busy streets by myself. Nobody was watching me, I would just go. I’d return the old batch of books, and pick up a new one. It was a huge amount of walking. I had flat feet, so they put me in these shoes with arches, and my feet would hurt. I don’t know how long it took me. It must have been 10-12 blocks. I had to go underneath the train, across Tremont Avenue, and the library was on the left hand side. I would spend a long time in the library getting my new books, and then I would walk home. Going there was downhill but going back was uphill. I got tired holding the books. There was this one tree. I don’t remember what it looked like. It was very big and wide and high. I didn’t look up, but the tree had a place to sit and rest my feet. I would sit there and relax and rest a minute. I’d catch my breath, then head home.—Beverly Bader

Kids in a Forest

Cars with Christmas Trees

I was brought up the youngest in a large family. Suddenly everyone was out of the house, blockbusting severely ravaged our close-knit neighborhood and my mother, who was sick for years, died of cancer. All this when I was 15. On my 17th birthday I enlisted in the Navy and though my orders which would have likely sent me to Viet Nam were rescinded, I was already a casualty from all the drastic changes of those past few years. When I got married and started having kids my four year old commented one day how he loved seeing cars with Christmas trees on the roof during the holidays and the happiness it implied. When I saw a Rockwell illustration from the '50's of a happy New England family speeding by with a car full of happy kids and a tree on the roof it soothed the sting of a long ago ache. For the past twelve years I'd buy an extra tree and attach it to the roof of our van for the two weeks leading up to Christmas. Perhaps some kids would joyously take note...perhaps even an adult or two. —Mike Lennon

Old Willow Tree

"A block or two west of the new City of Man in Turtle Bay there is an old willow tree that presides over an interior garden. It is a battered tree, long suffering and much climbed, held together by strands of wire but beloved of those who know it. In a way it symbolizes the city: life under difficulties, growth against odds, sap-rise in the midst of concrete, and the steady reaching for the sun. Whenever I look at it nowadays, and feel the cold shadow of the planes, I think: 'This must be saved, this particular thing, this very tree.' If it were to go, all would go—this city, this mischievevous and marvelous monument which not to look upon would be like death."
—E.B.White, Here is New York

Aunt Tillie's Tree

Not far from my parent’s apartment in the Bronx, my Uncle Max and Aunt Tillie had a small country home in Stelton, NJ, a place that my parents took us as a retreat from the bustling city life. It was a paradise with gardens, lawns and lots of trees. The fresh air wasn’t the only reason we visited. My aunt’s cooking from her garden was perhaps the best ever. My favorite treat was her berry jams and homemade pies.

The old-fashioned well pump and swing were perhaps my favorite place to play in the backyard. But there was also one particular tree that became a jungle gym for my brother and me. Robert was six years older and much more able to climb the interweaving branches. I don’t remember what kind of tree it was, but the hornet’s nest called it home way up near the top.

Being only five, I eventually I got the hang of it and was climbing as high as he could. Fortunately, the hornets never bothered us because we never bothered them. Somehow that tree became our home and an adventure for a child’s imagination. We could you see all the other homes and yards from this vantage point. We could become sailors looking out for Pirates or great giraffes or floating clouds hovering way above the grass below.

At the end of the weekend, when it was almost time to leave, I usually gave my parents the slip. Just as they were ready to go back home, they discovered I was missing. Immediately, they had everyone searching high and low, praying I hadn’t fallen into a well or went too far and got lost. But all the while, I watched. I was perched way up high among the branches, hidden from view. After all, this was my retreat and a place that was just as much a home as anything else I knew.

By the way, that’s my brother in the tree. He’s gone now, but not from my memory. Sometimes I can still hear the wind through the leaves, and we are smiling at each other.
—Peter Scheer

Shirley's Tree

I have a tree that means a lot to me. It is about 13 years old. When my sister died, we were cleaning up her yard to get ready to sell her house and found baby red maple trees from her neighbors tree. She always loved that tree, so I took the babies and planted them in my yard. I am sending a picture of "Shirley's tree." I think of her often as I look at it.—Nancy LeRoy

Red Oak By The Garage in the Morning