{"id":278,"date":"2011-11-11T04:55:24","date_gmt":"2011-11-11T12:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=278"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:34","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:34","slug":"stormy-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/stormy-days\/","title":{"rendered":"Stormy Days"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORMY DAYS<\/strong>
\n<\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Most of us in the northeast are unlikely to forget the short-lived but hard-hitting snowstorm of October 29, 2011.\u00a0 I emerged from a funeral at two pm on that day and heard the ominous sound of continuous cracks, pops and crashes as trunks split, limbs came down and whole trees toppled. \u00a0The storm broke even the biggest of trees as well as the hearts of those that love them.
\n<\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The 2011 storm came on the heels of the twenty-fourth anniversary of England’s Great Storm of October 1987.\u00a0 That weather disaster was caused by high winds rather than wet snow, but the deadly outcome was the same–an estimated 15 million trees were lost in southern England.\u00a0 Trees that had borne witness to hundreds of years of history were felled by the score–as with our northeastern trees, their heavy branches were in full leaf and even the stoutest roots lost their grip on the over-saturated earth.\u00a0 The Great Storm changed the landscape of southern England and its effects can still be seen and felt.\u00a0 It will be the same for us.
\n<\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now, in the aftermath of the 2011 storm, the piles of downed branches line the streets.\u00a0 I hope that most of them will be put through chipper shredders, turned to mulch and returned to the earth.\u00a0 But as sad as the branches are, I think the overhead scene is even worse.\u00a0 Severed or nearly severed limbs dangle, caught on other limbs–for now.\u00a0 If not removed, they will break free in the next windstorm or over the winter, crashing down unexpectedly.\u00a0 In earlier times, those threatening, vulnerable branches were sometimes called “widow makers”\u009d for obvious reasons.
\n<\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The shard-like remains of limbs and branches are still up there too, pointing towards the once- angry sky and testifying in their own way to the storm’s violence. \u00a0\u00a0All of them cry out for tree surgeons’ attention–sooner rather than later.
\n<\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My town has lots of old, tall sycamore trees and they were among the most harmed by the storm.\u00a0 I find this especially distressing because sycamores seem to me the most “human”\u009d of trees.\u00a0 Their bark exfoliates or peels, giving the trunks an interesting mottled appearance that reminds me of human skin–especially aging human skin.\u00a0 The stout trunks sometimes have large lumps and bumps, and the majority of us who are not fashion models are similarly lumpy and bumpy.\u00a0 Under stress a sycamore will suffer the arboreal equivalent of a nervous breakdown, shedding its leaves early in the growing season.\u00a0 But it is also resilient, producing another crop of foliage later in the summer.\u00a0 Like the best of us, sycamores find a way to flourish in less-than-favorable urban and suburban conditions, tolerating pollution and the constant vibration of street traffic.\u00a0 In addition to being pillars of our arboreal heritage, sycamores–in all their strength and frailty–are a collective metaphor for our society. When sycamores are in serious jeopardy, we are all in trouble.
\n<\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So, other than cleaning up the mess and waiting for a return call from the tree surgeon, what can we do in the aftermath of the storm?
\n<\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If you have lost trees, plan now to replace them.\u00a0 Small flowering specimens are lovely, especially for constrained spaces, but if you have the room, consider a large shade tree.\u00a0 Most of us won’t leave a legacy in art or music or science, but we can leave a silent, enduring legacy by planting a big, long-lived tree.\u00a0 Think of disease-resistant elms and chestnuts, beeches, oaks, zelkovas and even the tulip trees so beloved of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.\u00a0 Old trees, like well-aged people connect us to the past; young trees, like our children, connect us to the future.\u00a0 Communities of trees need age diversity just like communities of people.\u00a0 Succeeding generations in our communities will judge us on efforts like tree planting.
\n<\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My great fear, as a gardener and tree lover, is that some people, especially those who have suffered expensive storm damage, will not want to replace lost trees.\u00a0 Sizing up the cost of house or car repairs and the inconveniences of power outages, it is easy to forget the cooling benefits of a shade tree, which multi-tasks by simultaneously cleansing polluted air and filtering run-off water.\u00a0 As a society we pay a lot for machines that do those tasks much less efficiently, cost-effectively and beautifully.
\n<\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If you have damaged but salvageable trees, keep them watered and properly pruned going forward.\u00a0 They will repay you in years of shade and resistance to damage in lesser storms.
\n<\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Those of us who plant new trees–and even those of us who don’t–will be able to see a silver lining in the 2011 storm cloud as soon as next spring.\u00a0 Sun loving plants will sprout in formerly shady areas and will continue to flourish in the decade or so before replacement trees begin to shade them out once again.\u00a0 It isn’t too late to make a virtue of a necessity by planting tulip or daffodil bulbs in areas where damage has been cleared away.
\n<\/font><\/font>\u00a0 If you look at the bigger picture painted by the 2011 storm, you may also agree with the words of Andy Jesson, head gardener at Sheffield Park, and English National Trust property that suffered great losses in 1987.\u00a0 In an interview with the Telegraph newspaper, Mr. Jesson said, “I learnt a lot from the Great Storm; it taught me that as much as I like to think I influence nature by growing trees and shrubs, I’m really at her mercy.”\u009d
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STORMY DAYS \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Most of us in the northeast are unlikely to forget the short-lived but hard-hitting snowstorm of October 29, 2011.\u00a0 I emerged from a funeral at two pm on that day and heard the ominous sound of continuous cracks, pops and crashes as trunks split, limbs came down and whole trees toppled. \u00a0The … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1513,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions\/1513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}