The Wild Tree

My little almond tree on the north side of the house has clusters of beautiful blossoms. Last year it had only two, and they were pretty ratty-looking. This spring, the tree had a better idea of what to do.

Perfectly placed, the tree is not too close to the fence, and Joma can see it from her bedroom window. The scrub jay who planted it did a great job.

The Diploma

I snapped this picture about 12 years ago, and I was ecstatic to have captured this species of bird -- the rufous-sided towhee is a very secretive bird -- on camera.

I've seen them down in the woods by the river; when I hear their call, I search for a glimpse of them. Not often successfully, either.

This year, I saw a bird scuffling around in my euonymus bush, saw a flash of orange-ish feathers about the color of a robin's breast. A robin? In a densely leaved shrub? That made no sense.

This past week, the mystery bird made his appearance right by our pool, scratching around among the river rocks and fallen leaves. It was a towhee!

You saw a bird, what's the big deal?

The big deal is that when we moved here, twenty years ago, our back yard was dying grass. A feeble fig tree and a twig-like little persimmon starved in the far corner. The patio off the kitchen was unusable because of the summer sun that baked the cement as soon as it was dawn. All along the east fence, there was a rock-hard hill of clay soil so inhospitable it wouldn't even grow weeds.

Earlier that year, I'd read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, and was full of ideas for terraforming barren ground. Our back yard was going to change.

We put the pool in, and then I began planting. Over the next twenty years, we had a myriad of shrubs and plants that came and went; the pampas grass, a perennial morning glory, and beautiful breath-of-heaven went nuts and tried to take over the world. But the real foundation came when we planted podocarpus gracilior (Fern Pine) on the south side off the kitchen patio, and a hopseed, a eucalyptus, and a lemon tree on the eastern side of the patio. Then a nandina (Heavenly Bamboo), the euonymus, and a few years later, another podocarpus.

What was a desert is now a woodland, and the summer sun comes through the 'forest' canopy only in little sparkles. Under that canopy, a monstera deliciosa thrives beside a large-leafed philodendron. White-crowned sparrows return each year at fall equinox to scratch and feed in the undergrowth; goldfinches pack the feeders; scrub jays patrol the branches to scream if they see a cat.

But this year, a towhee.

For me, that's a lifetime achievement award.

Don't Name Them

When we surveyed our pond one spring, we found that out of all our original goldfish, only Rosie was left. The fancy ones, Sully and Margaret, Swishy, Paris, and Face -- a Great Egret had been raiding our front yard and had eaten all our named fish.

A couple friends donated their goldfish to us, and our old crew had had some babies, so we had plenty in the pond once again. Alex turned to me as we watched them and said, "This time, don't name them, please."

I never have named the fish again, either. They are all singly or as a school, "Fish." They come and they go; raccoons and egrets and cats take them as they can, and babies are born, dark and tiny, growing into orange delightful swirls.

This picture is of the podocarpus gracilior that shaded the south side of our house.

Yes. Past tense.

We have a rat (or two) in our attic this year, and after lengthy arguments for months with the pest control company rep, in which I refused to cut this tree down because it shaded so much of the house from the fierce summer sun, I walked down the narrow side "yard" and had a look at where rats might be entering the house, and a closer look at the tree.

Suddenly rats weren't really the focus of my concern. Where two other fern pines (that's the podocarpus) had been planted at the same time off the back patio, the trunks were about six inches in diameter. For whatever reason, this creature's waist was more than sixteen. It was poised and ready to take out the fence, and indeed, had already knocked off a couple roof tiles. Lush and beautiful as it was, rat or no rat, it had to go.

Last night, after the tree guy had given his estimate, I went out and took a pic of the tree, and got a bit teary. I love all my trees very much. This morning, when I walked out onto the street to see the result (the tree cutters arrived at 7:15 am) after it was gone, it was horrible, like Sherman's march to the sea. A desert. A wasteland. A bald-faced side of the house.

The view is now horrible from the inside of the house, too. A big bay window looks out on ... fence. No foliage, no birds playing in the evergreen branches, just boards.

We're leaning towards a few nandina in that area, to make a graceful foliar display year round, but I will always miss this ... Tree.

The Classical Tale of the Season to Come

Sunset light caught the tender reddish leaves sprouting  on the pomegranate tree, lovely against the mostly cloudy sky and the remains of the ornamental pear blossoms in the background.

This is a light only seen when the weather is unsettled; the sun is gentler, the sky softer. The leaves are a color only seen in spring, before the photosynthesis machine hits high gear, and green -- thick, tough green -- becomes the color of the day.

My son-in-law and I ran out onto the porch this afternoon to watch the heavens open up and a deluge of rain pour down, in one of the heaviest storms we've seen this year. We couldn't even go to the edge of the porch without being soaked; water was standing three inches deep on the south side of the house. I'd been out in the studio in the garage, working away at a sketch, and heard the sound of the weather change from pattering rain to a roar -- I think I have to run and see what new entertainment has been provided, and so I raced through the house to the front door so that I could see it without getting completely soaked.

It's Spring, and everything from the constellations to the atmosphere, the trees' branches to the tiny weed seeds in the soaked earth are telling us a story.

After every Winter, it's a story that I love to hear, over and over again.

Goodbye, Nicholai

The 1977 printing of the Sunset Western Garden Book has this to say about eucalyptus:

No pests. In Australia, you seldom find a eucalyptus leaf unchewed by insects; here, by contrast, you almost never find one insect-chewed. Importing has been entirely by seed; no natural pests have been imported by way of living plants. There are no foliage-attacking diseases of eucalypts here.

Indeed, one of the reasons there are so many eucalyptus in California is because they were so easy to grow, so beautiful, so varied. At my previous house, and this one, my front yard planting had as its focus the feathery, graceful, tall Eucalyptus nicholii: willow-leaf eucalyptus.

"Nicholai," I whispered to this tree when I planted it, "your job is grow fast and tall and hide that ugly street light from me." (Right by the sidewalk in front of the house was an orange-tinted street light -- unsightly by day and glaringly bright at night. Ugh.)

And so it did. In only a few years, Nicholai soared above the street light, with grace and loveliness shading the yard, for peaceful darkness at night, and cutting the heat of the late afternoon sun.

Sitting in the front yard was like sitting on the edge of a rich forest, thanks to the nicholii and little brother tree Dwarf Blue Gum. Complete privacy from the street, even from the sidewalk a few feet away. On the hottest summer days, we'd sit under the tree with a mister spraying us, and be comfortable and content, surrounded by beauty.

Bad things happen even to good trees.

I'm not sure when, but a bug from Australia arrived in California: the eucalyptus psyllid. The infestation began as a few white dots on some leaves of Nicholai; when we found out what it was, we did some oil spray, which helped the lower branches we could reach. Alas, most of the tree was higher than we could spray, and the foliage began to really weaken, with great leaf fall sprinkling the lawn.

Last month, seeing the disgusting waxy exudate from the psyllids sprinkling the lawn, the front porch, the outdoor furniture, the sidewalk, our neighbor's lawn and driveway and cars, we knew that we had a lost cause on our hands. We could have tried systemic poison, but the amount of chemicals needed would be massive, and we'd have to trash the front vegetable garden, the blueberries, and forget ever planting edible stuff in the front yard, because the psyllids are never going to give up. Bugs don't quit. Moreover, runoff from our yard (and all the yards in this neighborhood) goes right into the river. The fish -- those left -- don't need more pesticides.

We love our trees. They don't talk, or beg at the table, but they protect us from the sun and the wind. They soothe our eyes with beauty, and share our home. Sometimes they dump stuff on the neighbor's yard, but we don't mind cleaning up after them.

It was a hard decision to have the nicholii cut down. We'd thought to wait until Fall, but economic times are tough right now for tree services, so we were able to get a really fine price ... for the job to be done today.

Maybe it was best to be done with it quickly, I don't know. The tree-cutters were most efficient, and very careful of the other plants in the yard. We said goodbye to the tree before the tree service arrived, and if that sounds dumb, so be it. I've been leaking tears all day over the tree that I planted and nurtured and admired through all the weather of eleven years.

My tree is gone. The yard, without Nicholai in it, seems strangely small. The dwarf blue gum (which is not affected by the psyllids) will fill in quickly; most likely in two years it will be hard to tell there was ever a second tree there.

Still, I won't forget it.