Trees and Me

Feeling uprooted? My solution is to dig in.

During our regularly scheduled Saturday morning chat Dad reminded me of a snippet of family history I hadn’t thought of in years. My grandmother planted a maple tree to honor the birth of each of her grandchildren. My grandparents occupied the same house from well before I was born until my grandfather passed away, so the whole family bore witness to the growth of that little grove, and my grandmother fiercely protected it. More than a dozen cousins, more than a dozen saplings. The first went into the ground in the mid 1950s, the last in the early 1970s. No small undertaking. Those trees stood strong through rough weather, home renovations and radical changes in the world around them. 

Years have passed since my last visit to Ohio, and family connections there have thinned and scattered, so I have no idea if the trees still stand in reality. There is certainly no one left who would remember which tree was planted for what cousin. I confess to having no particular interest in asking. So much better to let the sylvan symbols live on undisturbed in my memory.

When my parents packed our family off to the deserts of New Mexico I learned to love the stark landscape and wide open skies, but I always missed the trees that dominated the softer, more diffuse landscape of my early years. The plains of West Texas, where I lived most of my adult life, offered nothing that satisfied that longing either. The semi-arid llano estacado, beloved by cotton farmers and ranchers, never inspired my soul.

Not that I didn’t try. I’ve planted trees everywhere I've lived . Following my grandmother’s tradition I planted trees for each of my girls, sturdy pinon pines that were still there when I last checked. A couple of desert willows, several mimosas. They were lovely little sentinels holding the barrenness at bay, but fell far short of the miles of shady canopy I associated with my childhood.

Then I moved to the southern tip of the Pineywoods region. There are trees EVERYWHERE. When we first visited on a fact finding trip, the number of trees made a much bigger impression than traffic, the job market or cultural offerings. 

My son-in-law gently teases me about my attachment to arboreal life. He once told a story from when he still lived at home about pulling weeds. One plant that got tossed to the side and forgotten. It took root in its new location. They decided to see what came of it. A full grown tree, that’s what. He loves to say outrageous things just to see if people fall for it. For years, I thought this story was one of those, but I now have my own twelve foot tall volunteer tree so…yeah, it’s a thing. And I guess if you grow up where the line between a weed and a tree is that fuzzy, maybe you don’t attach the same significance to them.

Perhaps this love now runs even deeper than my Ohio roots. After all, I was only five when we left. Almost twenty-five years spent reading and studying Tolkien thoroughly indoctrinated me in his philosophies on nature and amplified my own tendencies. One of the best known photographs of Tolkien, taken near the end of his life, shows him sprawled comfortably at the foot of a black pine on the grounds of the Oxford Botanical Garden. The tree, named Laocoon by the author and believed to be more than two hundred years old, became a destination for fans who wanted to honor his spirit and his commitment to preservation of the natural world. The tree succumbed to age and disease in 2014, but in 2021 then-Prince Charles planted a cutting from the original, coaxed along into a viable sapling, near the location of the original. Almien! (If your Elvish is rusty, that’s a toast to its health.)

Given all that backstory, it felt like providence that a plan I set in motion a couple of months ago came to fruition at the end of a, let’s say…challenging, week. This past Saturday, with the help of Trees for Houston, my Creation Care team at church hosted a tree giveaway. The big organization provided the trees, we provided the site and the manpower, or in this case the woman power.  

On Friday the work of loading and hauling a hundred and fifty trees provided the means to get out of my head and into the world in a positive way. Everyone I dealt with was helpful and kind. At the end of my labors, while physically done-in, I also felt a deep sense of satisfaction surveying the rows of babies waiting to go to their new homes.

He who plants a tree plants hope. —Lucy Larcom 

Saturday the weather gods did their part. Warm temperatures wore out their welcome here weeks ago, but Saturday was just soft and cool enough to hint that autumn will actually happen. Two of my favorite people showed up to help and we had a great morning. The trickle of visitors never overwhelmed us, but came steady enough in the early hours to make the event feel successful. The easy pace allowed for conversations with our visitors about what brought them to us. They spoke of losing trees in a storm, moving to a new home or wanting to attract birds and butterflies. We talked and joked and debated the merits of live oaks and fringe trees, beautyberries and Turk’s caps. 

Fellowship and gratitude and smiles and sunshine. The perfect antidote for…well, you know. Not to mention the trees themselves. Fall is a great time to plant in warm climates. The four I brought home will go into the ground this weekend, if all goes well, to rest and acclimate. Then in the spring I’ll stand vigil, watching for signs of regeneration.