Tree hugging on Valentine’s Day
Chinese pistache when new.
In the background to the left, you can see
the large trees that line the driveweay
Ithink that I shall never see
a poemlovely as a tree.
“Trees,”by Joyce Kilmer
I admit it—I’m a tree hugger.But when you buy an older house, as I did thirty years ago, you don’t (or Ididn’t) take the trees into consideration. Our house had a huge, old elm at thecurbside by the driveway, a beautiful graceful tree that served as a signpostfor telling visitors where we lived. I always had the fanciful notion that thetree anchored the house to the property; without it, the house might float awayinto space. I could not imagine losing that tree.
But the house was a hundredyears old two years ago, so the tree probably was the same age. It had begunalmost twenty years ago to drop an occasional limb. Once I came home late atnight from a trip only to find the entire front yard covered by a huge fallenbranch. Another time, it dropped a long skinny branch that had been danglingright alongside the curb. Christian worried about parking his car beneath it,though he loved the shade. We all worried about a branch falling on aschoolchild—the house is across the street from Lily B. Clayton ElementarySchool and watching children come and go is one of our extra delights.
There came the day that thecity tree crew informed me the tree was rotten inside and hollow. Because it wasin the boulevard between street and sidewalk, it is legally the city’s tree,and they said it had to come down. Jordan took pictures of the demolition, butI hid in my cottage not wanting to watch. With Christian’s help, we replaced itwith a Chinese pistache—it’s a pretty tree, doing pretty well now and supposedto have brilliant colors in the fall (taking into account this is Texas and wedon’t get a lot of fall color). The pistache will never be as tall and majesticas the late elm, but it is a tree, and I am grateful.
The house boasts two remaininglarge trees on the edge of the driveway, equally as tall as the elm we lost.They are sort of squeezed between the house and the driveway—perhaps, when planted,no one expect them to grow so big or the house to last so long. But they are aproblem—they have pushed the driveway concrete up until only the hardiest ofsouls will attempt my driveway, and that’s a problem because people drive allthe way back to the cottage to pick me up. For several years now, I haveworried about what to do with these trees. They shade the house from summerheat, and I know that we need more trees to fight pollution—we surely don’tneed to be cutting them down thoughtlessly.
When we had all the treestrimmed last month, I asked the arborist, and he recommended jackhammering upthe concrete and replacing it with decomposed granite. I happen to have a goodfriend who is a mason, and he said he and his crew could get rid of the brokenconcrete, but he wanted to meet with the lawn guy about the granite. We metyesterday, and ideas went back and forth, with John, my trusted yard guy,recommending tearing up the old concrete and laying new. That didn’t soundright to me, but they assured me the trees would be fine. And so we left it.
This morning I called thearborist, and he said no concrete. A porous material so the roots can breathe,which makes a lot more sense to a tree hugger like me. So we still haven’tworked it out completely, but what I thought would be a simple thing has turnedout to be complicated. And it’s once again on hold until I get everyone on the samepage. I think Mark, the mason, is more comfortable with my return to my originalplan; Jordan is not, because she’s looking at the convenience of using thedriveway and appearance. I’m looking at saving the trees. The appearance of thedriveway is second to me. The permanence of concrete is part of my hesitation.I figure if the granite doesn’t work out, we can go to Plan B. John seemed tosay the granite might be all right for ten years. I reminded him I am eighty-five!
Stay tuned for updates, but myfinal word is that older houses always bring new problems. That said, I wouldn’twant to live anywhere else.
Happy Valentines Day! As Iwrite, I am waiting for the Burtons to come out. I understand we’re havingsteak and salad for dinner, having abandoned the idea of smashed potatoes toaccompany. I’ve made a new Caesar dressing, which is a bastardization and I’mnot sure about it, but I have house-made croutons and mini-ice cream cones fordessert.
