It’s proper summer, as the British might say.
You may be struggling through a heat wave, or, in the Southern Hemisphere, fierce cold. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area the days of blue sky after blue sky after blue sky are upon us. Except when the fires burn. Which, yes, we’re burning and sometimes smoke colors everything slightly tan.
In my back yard I feel our region’s hotter temperatures acutely. You may remember that in the last two years we’ve lost the shade of two 70-year-old trees, one a cedar belonging to my neighbor that grew along a shared fence, the other a Chinese elm that shaded our windows, patio, lawn, hydrangeas, dogwood, ferns. You can imagine everything crunches right now.
My best friend and I were talking on the phone the other day about the elm. She has been my friend for more than 25 years, we raised our children together, often in this same living room. She said she was sad about the tree, I said I was too, at first, but that I’d moved on.
I have. I’ve got a plan and a hopeful vision. For now we’ve put up two sky blue umbrellas to protect the living room from the sun’s worst. I open the doors when it’s cool and close them when it’s hot. I hand water the plants I would like to keep alive.
But I’m working on more than simple alleviation. I can see the sky now, I feel the full force of the sun – and although I want to get out from under it I appreciate its authority. Even though my hydrangeas are browning and my ferns, well, to exaggerate a bit, carbonizing, at least now I see them. The elm’s branches used to hide everything, I miss their fey sway, I’m glad they are gone.
In future thinking, I enjoy choosing which plants I try to keep in place, and which I would like to dig up to give away. I want to plant a White Alder this fall, native to California and lovely – I hope birds and pollinators will enjoy. I think I’ll plant my own cedar in the side yard. I’ve told you this before. I’m just thinking about it all now again, as I look at temperatures in the high 80s and am relieved that this week they don’t predict any 90s.
Here’s something else I’m doing more of. Weeding. The elm branches used to blur the difference between weeds and shrubbery. Since everything I’m keeping alive needs all the water it can get, I have to remove interlopers.
It’s a different way of gardening, more intentional, less intoxicating, but once I accepted the loss of the elm it became my way.
Talk to me again at the end of August. I suspect I’ll be less sanguine but I think I’ll be glad I stayed optimistic as long as I could.
Have a weekend on the bright side. All the best.
25 Responses
Hooray for optimism! It can be so elusive that we should ride its currents when we find them (barring wilful, naïve, and dangerous blindness to dangers, of course). Enjoy your sunny garden!
@Frances, Yes, exactly. It is like catching a wave, especially these days, and I do try and feel every possible minute.
Lisa, apropos of your wish to garden more intentionally, you might find Darke and Tallamy’s The Living Landscape a useful read. Though it seems to be more geared to the eastern US, I found inspiration to plant for pollinators and critters. The philosophical bent makes great deal of sense. They are commonsensical as well. I have long gardened by replacing swaths of grass with plants, often natives but in my current garden, I have been using more shrubs and after the first year, they seem to do well without water. It’s kind of saving the planet, one garden at a time……..
@Barbara from Guelph, I absolutely feel like I’m helping the planet, if not saving it, one plant at a time. I was just thinking that I will probably replace the ferns on the extra-sunny side of my garden with native grasses. Thanks for the recommendation. II also follow @monarchgardensbenjaminvogt on Instagram, he’s planted a midwestern meadow as his front lawn!
Loss of a favorite tree has lots of impact. Good – more sky visible and not so good – hot sun exposure. All this changes the surrounding gardens and temps in the home. A shade garden has no chance. I find in hot sunny garden areas black bark mulch is a savior. It helps retain moisture and keep weeds down. I love your new tree choices and the umbrellas sound delightful.
@Susan, The umbrellas let me pretend I see the sky when I don’t:). Black bark mulch, hmm, must look for that, have only seen brown out here.
I protect every tree (as I know you did) with the feeling that I cannot bare the loss of its beauty and shade.
I am glad to know that you have found a way to move on as it gives me hope that things can give way and others take root.
Your writing inspires and is lovely.
Luci
@Luci, Thank you. We did have an arborist checking on the tree every year, he thought it would not fall down, but the year our drought ended we had SO much rain, many many trees fell. I wish I could have saved it, and maybe I could, had we cut it back more strongly? I don’t know. But, regret is a killer so I’m moving on:).
Read your post in SF while I wait to get a haircut. Optimism has been on my mind recently as I witness in myself and others the dramatic way what we think about events affects the events and our happiness. It interests me specifically how much we are the neural pathways we create with our thoughts. We can’t avoid the minor and major negative events of a lifetime, but we can control how we choose to think about them. This means to me every day is a new opportunity for calm, for happiness, for joy. Yes to native trees and plants. Yes to a world that does what it can to recognize and stop climate change. Good luck with your garden plans and your gardening. Here’s to cooler days. xo.
@Katherine C. James, “We can’t avoid the minor and major negative events of a lifetime, but we can control how we choose to think about them. This means to me every day is a new opportunity for calm, for happiness, for joy.” Yes. And with any luck it will feel like an opportunity, not a fretful obligation, which is the trap into which I sometimes fall.
Lisa, I sympathize.
In hurricane Irma, we lost a lovely Muntingia tree that shaded our back patio, part of the back yard, and the back of our house. Here in S. FL, the afternoon sun is fierce in the summer and our back yard is on the west side of the house. I was sad when I lost the tree, and the shade, but it had needed a lot of maintenance to keep it in check, sweep up the berries that I’d thought birds would eat (but they didn’t), and the fallen leaves. Without the tree I had a good-sized space to plant edibles– a goal of mine is to grow more of our own food. I put in a huge elephant ear for immediate shade, as well as papayas and several plantain (the banana relative) plants, sugar cane, ginger, and tropical yams. I’m training a Quisqualis indica vine over the windows for shade, but the back door lets in SO much heat. Anyway, I guess the point is that sometimes loss brings opportunities we wouldn’t have taken otherwise.
Thanks for writing this blog.
Cara
@Cara, You are very welcome, thank you for reading! And your recently plantings sound amazing – so local, so lush.
Enjoyed your thoughtful post. We’ve owned 8 houses in 5 states over 35 years (thanks to corporentia) – the first an Eichler in Marin, the latest a little one in PA and in between a series of large family houses with lots of trees. I always bought houses with big trees, and had my heart cracked by losses at every one – an oak, a pair of sycamores, a very tall tulip poplar, a hickory, a sugar maple, a huge wild cherry. Your attitude is admirable. I sometimes enjoyed the new light, but I generally recovered by planting more trees – carefully researched, well-planted, and when I could, two for each one lost. Sometimes I visit them when I’m traveling. Gosh I love trees!
@Wendy, I love that term, “corporentia;)”
I think I’ll be planting 3 for the 2 lost – thanks for the tree love, helps me commit.
My next read will be Richard Powers’s “Overstory.” Fiction, about trees, as I understand it.
It’s been in the 90s here with the attendant humidity. It’s unrelenting yet I make myself get out in the early morning and garden – trimming back the irises and weeding. By the time I quit, I am dripping with sweat. It is satisfying to me when I’ve filled a large trash bag of yard waste for the trash collection. Makes me feel productive. Next on my list is to dig up and separate all those iris rhizomes. I don’t know why I’ve let them go so long. Your way of gardening sounds more pleasurable. Have a good weekend.
@Jane, I have those days, when I focus on clearing and productivity. But I feel a responsibility to enjoy the privilege of my life, so I work hard to make myself step back and feel joy.
That’s so funny, really, that I put joy and peace on my list, but, gotta work with my underlying personality/cognitive structure, so, there you have it!
I’ve enjoyed your tree posts while I ponder my relationship with my ash tree. I have watched it grow to full size but have worried so much over the last few years, like it is my child. This ash tree, to me, is the perfect tree. The light shade protects my ferns, coral bells, and hydrangeas while making sure my choice of dark pavers are never too hot for my bare feet should I dart out to collect flowers or enjoy the goldfinches. The bark feels so rugged and the darkness is a wonderful foil to the brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows of its fall leaves. But the ash borers are coming. They are near me in Virginia now. My tree now has doctor appointments and treatments. My neighbor notes I could buy a lot of trees for what I am paying to maintain the ash. A friend notes the Buddhist belief that attachment can be a source of unhappiness. While I truly love this tree, I will soon need to let go and have the many happy memories of my son’s treehouse, the kittens learning to climb and the wonderful times beneath it’s canopy sustain me.
@Vicki, This is very beautiful. I can hear the borers coming. I can feel how you love your tree. Maybe it’s telling you,” I have to go soon.”
Trees offer shade but they can be really messy…
our neighbours had a tall unruly fir tree that hit our roof in a wind and we hired an arborist every year to have it pruned away from our home…years later it was so diseased that it was a hazard and was subsequently cut down.
I loved the new light in our front garden! I had to rethink the plants and buy new sun loving ones…but Nature had a surprise in store….an Arbutus grew up in its place! It now towers over our bungalow and we have had to hire the arborist again and the leaves are falling all over the garden in the summertime and I am raking every other day!
Trees can be a lot of work!
@Bungalow Hostess, Trees are definitely messy, and can be a lot of work, and now that you point it out I am clear I have embraced messy and embraced doing the work on a reasonable level but the mess will never leave me.
Our oak grows over the neighbor’s yard. The thing is, if we cut back everything to the fence, the tree – now designated heritage due to its size and being a native species – would fall over! So I can see discussions coming and I hope we can come to a happy understanding.
Another of your posts that sings to me! I am in the process of assessing our gardens and it is, indeed, a process. Living in the heartland has significant weather challenges, so we’ve tried to stick with native perennials as much as possible. I say things to the rudbeckia and echinacea like, “You know why you’re here: do the best you can, but understand that I am not in a position to spend a lot of time or water on you. This yard, once a prairie and still prone to drought, was a stopping point on the Santa Fe Trail, so buck up.”
These and other flowers have been rearranged by goldfinches—one of many lessons re my perceived control over the garden. I do fiercely protect the gardens from interloping opportunists, however, and love to watch the bees and butterflies they all pull in. Lots of losses in our 24 years here—insects ate Rose of Sharon bushes that lined the backyard and Japanese beetles and a lack of snow during recent winters wiped out the knockout roses we put in their place. Ice storms have wreaked havoc on tree branches.
But hope definitely springs eternal here…turns out my daughter has developed an affinity for peonies, so they will go in in the spot the roses vacated right next to the gorgeous day lilies my husband transplanted from his grandmother’s garden in St. Louis when she passed away some years ago. A new driveway took out a misshapen but beloved evergreen last month that had been the site of countless rabbit births. Already plotting plans for some new flora without the fauna.
A long-winded way of saying that moving on is good and there does seem to be some measure of solace in the reimagining!
@Mary, I love the way you talk to your flowers! So very plain-spoken. Seems to embody some iconic America virtues. I wish you and your future peonies the absolute best of luck! It’s true, living in one house for a long time (I’ve been here since 1986, with a 2-year hiatus) really does give you a chance to feel the changes of time in a certain way.
Our neighbors lost in a late winter storm a huge old oak tree that grew on our property line and shaded our deck for much of the day and provided privacy by our bedroom window at night. Although we helped them replace it with a large pine that should grow quickly and we now use our blinds, the new tree will never provide the lovely dappled shade and will take years to shield our bedroom window. I’ve been contemplating purchasing a large umbrella so am glad to hear that you found that helps. Mostly I think I will have to adopt your optimistic approach.
@MJ, Optimism, I have recently found, should not be taken for granted but can definitely be learned and fostered.
The umbrellas have been more helpful than I could have predicted. They come in many colors these days, aren’t horribly expensive, and make me quite happy. I hope you find yours. xox.
Summer does this to me,too
Interesting how things like trees can get under one’s skin
We’ve had birches and they were beautiful,a lot of shade,lovely leaves,white bark,very Yesenin…Than,there was a red maple tree,as the highlight of the garden,magnificent-I still have one in my other garden (the birch,red maple tree and a cedrus deadara)
Nevertheless,I love cedars very much-at home I have Cedrus libani,gorgeous and proud,joy to look at (but deodara has more shade). It makes me happy everytime I come home
Have a nice week
Dottoressa
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