Margotlog: Urban Foresters Take a Look

Margotlog: Urban Foresters Take a Look

There was a gaggle around the boulevard ash tree as I stepped down the driveway. "We're from Rainbow Tree," they told me, "checking to see how your ash is doing." Couldn't be better, as far as I was concerned. Treating my ash for the borer that's spreading destruction slowly westward has become my priority --every two years, going on twelve now.

I love shade! My essay "Eight Species of Shade" chronicles how when we first moved to this St. Paul city lot in 1985, only the boulevard ash offered any kind of shade. Otherwise, grass, front and back, did nothing to soften the lines of the clunky old house, nor offer any measure of shade to capture summer light and send it flickering into "green thoughts in a green shade" (Ben Jonson, "To Penthurst"). Over the next three years I begged, bought, or otherwise acquired five spruce sprouts, four silver maple fledglings, a decent sized golden locust, several foot tall white pines, a Russian olive, a flowering pink crab, and miscellaneous other self-planted offerings.

Caring for trees made me a sharp observer of other green growth: such as lawns, and what seemed to be a sudden decline in our winged insect messengers. Neighborhood residents were beginning to plant broad-leafed varieties of green in their boulevards. I followed suit, with hostas and lilies. I dug up some goldenrod and golden glow from the Ayd Mill Road walk-along and transported it a bit west, Ditto with violets found elsewhere on the property, and Virginia Water-leaf which re-established itself once mowing stopped. Slowly what had been "turf" became populated with broad leaves and some flowers. I heard the message against pesticides and herbicides and vowed never such killers would touch my green. (Note: honey bees, butterflies especially Monarchs are in sharp decline due to slow neurological poisoning by chemicals containing neonicotinoids.)

As the Rainbow Tree gaggle a studied the ash tree's broad, green branches. and checked its root flanges for the places where the ash borer pesticide had been injected, they pronounced it a very healthy tree. "It's beautiful ," said one of the urban foresters, as we all surveyed its rich and lively green. My heart soared into its branches where I preened and chirped.

"You're doing just right with these broad-leaf plantings around the base," said another. "Grass doesn't make the best bed for trees.It's best to plant like a forest."

I pondered that as another stepped up to explain--"Think of all the leaves that accumulate around the base and spread wide under forest trees. They decay and form mulch which helps to absorb and retain moisture. Plus leaf mulch like your plantings help to keep the soil cool. This means trees are much less likely to dry out during heat or suffer because they're unprotected from extreme cold."

For the rest of the day as I walked around the neighborhood, I inspected the base of oak and hackberry, some maples (the sugar maples are dying due to warmer temperatures, but there's a very nice hybrid being planted in the neighborhood), and the many, many ash trees that dominate St. Paul plantings.

Not everybody can afford to treat their boulevard ash every two years, but it doesn't require much outlay of funds to plant a boulevard and yard garden with broad-leaf perennials. In fact, many times throughout the spring, summer and early autumn, I walk past little mounds of dug-up hostas and lilies, offered quietly, free-of-charge to any gardener who wants to give them a home.