It Takes Faith to Plant Trees

 

My tree-planting efforts here have been largely successful, but many will not be nearly mature by the time I leave - either through a move or by passing on. It takes faith to plant trees that will outlive me by most accounts. It takes a special kind of faith to plant them in a rental property that I do not own, but it gives me a lot of joy to do so and that joy outweighs everything else. Though my front yard is dominated by my wildflower meadow, I have even planted a few trees there - all on the north side where their shade will not impact the amount of sunlight my meadow requires. I've made the mistake in the past of planting trees and shrubs on other sides of my wildflower plantings and as they matured they blocked sunshine that my meadow required. I was careful here.

Eventually, I hope that my maturing "forest" will provide the food and cover that my birds require. The flowers in the spring will feed my pollinators and the foliage of many will provide sustenance to nestlings in the neighborhood. It is working even now to some extent. As I sit each late afternoon and watch the happenings in my backyard, I've noticed a great crested flycatcher pick off caterpillars from my passionvines and I suspect he/she is taking them to a nest in a cavity somewhere nearby. I am always thrilled to share my caterpillars with birds. Not every one of them needs to become a mature butterfly and heaven knows that there are plenty of gulf fritillaries here already. I have some to spare. 

A few days back, I discovered this moth caterpillar feeding away on the foliage of my parsley haw (Crataegus marshallii). It is a  unicorn caterpillar - the larval stage of a common moth, but a new one for me.  It "disappeared" a few days later. Was it discovered by a bird or did it pupate? I will never know, but regardless, it is doing something positive in my landscape. As this community of plants develops over the years ahead, I hope it provides far more of these while the trees and shrubs provide fruit and cover.

My silky camelia (Stewartia malacodendron) today

Maybe someday
It also takes some faith (or blind hope) to add species not native to my region. I have done it quite successfully so far with most of my plantings, but a few are still struggling a bit. My mapleleaf viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium) has not grown like I had hoped, but it is growing despite the drought we've been experiencing here. It is the silky camelia, however, that I watch with the greatest hope. It is a species that is very difficult to find and if I lose this one, it may take me years to find another to replace it with. It was well into April before it showed any signs of leafing out and it has only been recently that it put on some growth.  A silky camelia, in all truth, has limited wildlife value for the wildlife I am most interested in providing habitat for, but it is breathtaking in bloom. It is one of my selfish pleasures, but every landscape should have a few of them. After all, we need a few personal reasons, besides the ecological ones, to maintain our faith in what we're doing.


Comments

  1. Aurora designingJuly 8, 2021 at 7:19 AM

    We surely do need to plant the trees! Thanks for sharing amazing info.

    - ​Steel Fence Surrey

    ReplyDelete

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