Summer 2017
September 2017
My Journey in Gardening by Kathe Worrell A Welcoming Shade Tree
Most gardens are a journey, not a destination. Like life, we never want it to end. Sometimes people will show me their garden & say, “This is a work in progress”. I laugh behind my lips (with a chortle actually). If it is not a work in progress, then you must have a boring yard or a duller imagination. Yet here I live amidst lollipop shrubs floating above a sea of black mulch & front lawn trees growing out of volcanos. While the tidiness can seem uninteresting, now & then I do see colors of life. Don’t get me wrong, I love it here. I have lived in anarchy & I hated it. Back there, some lawns were never mowed… ever. Forests were clear-cut, destroying valuable wildlife habitats. At summer’s end swimming pool water was dumped into my lively stream, while I was at church so I wouldn’t “see the dirty deed”. Sneaky & deadly to crayfish salamanders & other healthy critters. And then there was the perennial struggle to collect on the snow removal costs. Give me condo heaven any time. When we first moved to Harrogate, I wanted a spectacular specimen tree out front. If you only get one tree, I wanted it to be my true love. Yellow Magnolias were all the rage at the time & I yearned for the one I left behind. Fully aware that the yellows can be problematic in horticultural zone 7a, I went ahead anyway. The variety “Butterflies” was offered & I accepted the challenge. After a rough start, my specimen of desire finally kicked in & bloomed after about four years. Only one year so far has fulfilled the dreaded curse of frozen emerging buds & turning them into mushy brown death balls. This year we noticed a large crack in the trunk. It has not permeated the vascular cambium & the bark shows signs of edge healing, so I am hopeful. If a tree retains excess water during a rainy year, it can freeze the wet inner core. We all know that water expands when frozen, like in an ice cube tray. Inside a tree it has nowhere to go except to burst through the bark at the weakest point. It looks like a vertical slit the entire length of the tree trunk. I do know better than to paint it or put any kind of “treatment” on it. We will just wait & see. Our little tree presented us with a big surprise this year. It’s first bird nest! Early spring I watched as a large Blue Jay kept flying in & out of the upper branches shortly after leaf out. Though we were away for about a month & missed the avian family event of fledging, the nest remains as a testament to this newly created environment of a suburban neighborhood. My tree had finally been accepted by the wildlife here. We are both happy. Not all tree wildlife is a wanted addition to the landscape. Beware of snakes! That’s right: six foot long black King or Chain snakes. They manage to climb trees looking for bird eggs or the easy pickings of the young. My neighbor has had three & they climb up under the deck on the ledge & curl up to sleep. Hope they are not nesting. Late summer can be unbearable but if you schedule your gardening visits in the mornings, there is always time for a quick deadheading or to pick a bunch of joy for the vase. While waiting for my Summer Intern Garden Group on Tuesdays, I have taken to utilizing the shade under my lawn tree. I must admit I felt a little funny at first. I had never seen anyone sit under their front yard tree here before, but why not? It is a shade tree, after all. So if you see me sitting out there with an empty extra chair, feel free to join me & catch your breath from your routine walk around the hood. We can sit & gossip about the garden & who knows? … maybe about the weather too.









