Friday, September 30, 2005
Nurturing kids and trees
Libba Wolfe
Libba Wolfe's column appears twice monthly in Extra.
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The most magnificent things in life require constant care and worry. I’m talking about trees and children.
The fallen oak on Carolina Avenue made headlines and left a hole in the heart of a neighborhood. But surely I wasn’t the only mother of young drivers who would occasionally squint at that tree and start to worry.
I met Kent Walton of AAA Tree Service in June when he was cleaning up a huge maple that had fallen on a friend’s house. Seeing that kind of destruction makes you squint at the trees you take for granted. A close look around my yard made me worry and I called Kent.
I have a huge hemlock hedge and lots of questions. It was a relief to hear that unless I wanted a tightly controlled hedge, it can be trimmed every five years. I like the fluffy look.
More worrisome were some white patches of adelgids I found on a few lower branches. Adelgids are tiny insects that cover themselves with a tiny, waxy white cocoon. You can’t miss ’em.
Kent says they must be treated or the hemlocks will die. He sprayed horticultural oil (formerly known as dormant oil). It’s organic and needs to be applied twice a year. If you miss it in the spring, you need to wait for a cool day in the summer. Good luck on that. It goes to work right away by suffocating the adelgigs.
If you have an infestation on a small hemlock you can buy the oil and the equipment at the big garden centers. For a huge fluffy hedge like mine, you’ll need someone like Kent with a Ghostbuster backpack.
While he sprayed I trailed behind him, asking questions and taking notes.
When I pointed to the trees growing through the overhead wires, he shuddered. His motto is “Look up before you plant.” And look into the future. Do research on smaller trees. Don’t put in foundation trees and shrubs that you will have to butcher to see out your dining room windows.
If it’s too late to take that advice and you already have a bad combo of wires and big trees, don’t ever say the “T-word” to Kent. That would be topping. To a man who loves trees and has made pruning an art, topping is the ultimate dirty word. Call in the experts to show you how to have both beautiful, healthy trees and electricity. We have an appointment this fall.
A misshapen, ivy-covered dogwood in my backyard has been worrying me. I love its ancient, romantic look. But everyone who sees it nods and clucks and says the ivy is killing the tree. Kent clucked some and said the trailing ivy branches at the top were so thick they were keeping the leaves from making food through photosynthesis. The tree would die of light starvation. He prescribed hospice care.
I spent the next day cutting a foot-wide band from the ivy trunks at the top of the tree trunk. Believe me, they were trunks. It’s the end of the season and none of my blades was too sharp. And I was swaying on a stool I had dragged out of the kitchen. I got it done but you sure wouldn’t want to be paying me by the hour.
I was happy when Kent said the vines on the trunk could stay. As the ivy at the top dies, the wind will bring down what I can’t reach. Years ago, my rock ’n’ roll son David went to the University of Georgia in Athens. He was thrilled to find a house big enough for five guys to live in and space for band practice. In phone conversations, he described it as a palace. Before I visited for the first time he was exhausted from cleaning for three days.
You parents who will be visiting your newly out-of-the-nest kids for the first time need to get your “game faces” on. David’s perfect place was a HOVEL. A stack of bulging trash bags beside the kitchen door (inside) was the only evidence of cleaning.
But maybe I didn’t notice. I was riveted by the woodstove David hadn’t mentioned. You will understand when I say that woodstove was number one on my middle of the night worry list for the next three years.
David may not have been a neatnik, but he is a sweet boy and he made sure I saw some interesting sights that visit.
My favorite was a famous white oak in an old Athens neighborhood. It stands on a corner in a small roped-off square. It’s known as “The Tree That Owns Itself.”
In 1832, the man who owned and loved and worried about that tree deeded it to itself. The rest of his property could be cut up and cleared. But that oak has legal rights. A sign at the tree quotes from the deed: “For and in consideration of the great love I bear this tree and the great desire I have for its protection for all time….” His tree died and its self-possessing son was planted in 1946.
I’m certain everyone on Carolina Avenue understands.
