It’s mid-May and I’m working in my garden when I hear voices coming from my neighbor’s apple tree. Looking over the fence, I see two men with saws and pole loppers. I feel a flutter of apprehension. I have seen the carnage that untrained tree trimmers can cause to a tree, and the lack of safety equipment tells me that these gentlemen are not certified arborists.
The old tree could certainly use some pruning. From the looks of it, it has never been pruned. I guess he’s been growing up there as a free spirit for 60 years or more; It was probably planted shortly after the small ranch house was built in 1956. Now its five sturdy trunks, each 10 inches wide, form a vase-shaped canopy that fills nearly half the backyard. Smaller branches, covered in fresh green foliage, sprout profusely from the main trunks. Every fall, the apple harvest is abundant, although the fruits are quite acidic. The tree is healthy and productive.
I go back to working in my garden and try to tune out the sound of falling branches. This year I’m revamping my garden, replacing most of my purely ornamental plants with more wildlife-friendly options. I’ve been reading about gardening for wildlife and am eager to make some changes. I am encouraged by the diversity of insects that I am already beginning to see. I’m learning about the bees, insects, wasps and dragonflies that live in my garden, and I love it.
I look at the apple tree. The men have removed some of the lower branches and there is a ray of light under the tree. The shadow is now less oppressive. I have hope. I go in and take a break.
I try not to keep looking out the window, but I can’t help it. It’s not good. The men work slowly but steadily and more and more branches fall. Should I say something? What can I do? The men are just doing their jobs and the owner is nowhere to be found. I haven’t seen her since she bought the place four years ago.
When I go out again, I realize it. These men are not pruning the tree. They are cutting it down. These are not pruning cuts. These are the type of cuts that are made on a tree that is being removed. Large limbs, cut in a straight line, leaving open wounds. The shape of the tree was completely destroyed. Masses of foliage are removed, leaving little for photosynthesis.
In the seven years I have lived next to this old tree, I have never given it much thought. Now I am despondent. I can see how it has blocked the view to other backyards and realize how it has protected my yard from the strong easterly winds that hit our neighborhood. More importantly, I think of the countless native bees and other pollinators that feed on its flowers each spring and the many species of caterpillars that feed on its foliage (155 of them in the Portland area, according to the company’s website). National Wildlife Foundation). I think, in turn, of the songbirds, who depend on these caterpillars to feed their chicks and who nest and perch on their branches. All that habitat will disappear.
It’s getting late. It will be dark soon. The men continue working. Why are you taking so long? Let’s get this over with.
They’re packing their bags! After all, they’re not going to cut down the tree. they have overcome itand now they are gone. I don’t know what’s worse: knocking down a tree and ruining its shape for the rest of its life, or uprooting it completely even though it’s perfectly healthy. All I know is that I have a knot in my stomach.
I have recently read A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future By Benjamin Vogt. It is a thoughtful and inspiring book about gardening in an era of global warming and mass extinctions. One passage in particular keeps coming to me: “Be willing to love with a broken heart,” it says, “to foster that brokenness and touch the world that so many keep at a distance to protect their identity.” Faced daily with sad stories about habitat destruction, many of us turn away in despair. We must remain committed, says Vogt, and continue fighting for nature, even if it sometimes breaks our hearts to recognize what we have done to it.
“I don’t want to always feel better in my garden,” Vogt writes in A new garden ethic. “I don’t want to be cured. I need my pain. I need my anger. These emotions are not enemies but indicators of empathy and compassion. “They let me know the depth of my feelings and the power of a lifetime fighting for justice and equality.”
In the days and weeks that follow, when I glimpse that tortured tree, I respond with anger and sadness, but also with love. Never giving in to despair, I do what I can to give wildlife a fighting chance. I plant more native plants in my garden: willow, chokecherry, serviceberry, madrone, oceanspray, goldenrod, gumweed, sidalcea. I plant sunflowers, phacelia, California poppies. I set up a small wildlife pond. I clear patches of bare soil for ground-nesting bees, which cannot dig through thick mulch. I build piles of rocks and logs and leave my garden in disarray. And I write. I write with love and with a broken heart.
