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Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Me and trees....we got a thang goin on.
My husband and I bought a co-op in Queens, NY in 2008. Being "city people", we always lived in cubicle-like apartments with elevators, doormen and garbage shoots. This was a garden apartment, and the first time we had a place to plant, our first opportunity to GROW things! We had a huge tree in front that we assessed to be about 50 years old. It was tall (about 40 ft) and the trunk was quite wide. The roots were coming up through the lawn and caused the sidewalk in front to buckle. The leaves completely canopied most of our grass, so between the roots and the shade, we could not grow a decent lawn no matter what we did. Every time we had a wind storm, there would be dead branches all over the place.
I secretly wanted the co-op to get rid of the tree, but knew if I requested it, my suggestion would not be entertained at all. Everything costs money. Uprooting and removal of the tree would be crazy...it wasn't hurting anybody. I felt guilty not wanting the tree there. She (I saw the tree as an old, wise woman) had such history...she'd seen children grow up, people move in and out of the community, housed countless families of squirrels and birds and God knows what other living beings. We knew we would just have to deal with the tree until....well, it wasn't there anymore. This discomfort I felt about her would have to take care of itself somehow.
She was pretty big....split the front yard in two. She had this bulky presence that just didn't sit right with me.
Here are a couple of pictures as it stood in front of our place. You can see how pathetic the grass is.
On September 16, 2010 a category EF-1 tornado ripped through our development. Winds sustaining 90-100 miles per hour were recorded. Windows were blown out, homes were destroyed, a woman was killed less than a mile from our home on the Grand Central Parkway . A falling tree landed on her car.
The following link is a video taken from an apartment building less than a mile from my current home..ironically, this was shot from the apartment building Larry and I lived in before we bought the co-op.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsiJ3z3WbhM
I was home alone with the kids. It was about 5:15pm and I was feeding them dinner. I hadn't watched the news all day so I had no idea what was coming. I knew it was raining, I knew it was windy...but suddenly, the sky turned a strange shade of green and rain was shooting in through the window horizontally. I KNEW something BIG was happening. I grabbed both children, put them on the couch and laid on top of them. The noise we heard was deafening...like the building was falling down around us. The walls were shaking and the light coming in through the windows completely disappeared. Then a crescendo, a huge crashing sensation...not just a sound or a vibration. An ending. It was quiet. The whole episode was only about 5 minutes, but in that short time, so much changed.
The light peeking through the windows was different, camouflaged by branches and leaves. I ran from room to room, trying to figure out what happened. I'd never experienced a tornado before, and because I had no warning of a weather occurrence, I was still incredibly confused. When I got to the third room and still saw greenery pushed up against the window panes, I put 2 and 2 together.
My husband is standing next to the base of the tree. She didn't snap, she was UPROOTED and toppled . When the arborists dismembered her, we counted the rings...70+ years old. She had a great life.
She went down with a huge finale!
Other trees went down too, but my girl made the biggest impression. An entire bedroom was taken out.
Fast forward to the following April....Mike Bloomberg donates 18,000 trees to the 5 boroughs, our neighborhood is awarded a majority of them due to the impact of the tornado. I was happy to hear it, but I knew that even if we hadn't been that fortunate, my husband and I would have taken care of it ourselves. I was concerned that the donated trees would be weak saplings, not worth the care they would take in order for them to root. But, oh, I was wrong.....
The first tree to grace our property was a decent size, about 10 feet tall and it had itty bitty purple buds on it...maybe 15 or 20 of them. They planted it right were the grand old girl had stood. Within a few days, the purple buds all fell off. There weren't a lot of leaves and the trunk was very thin.
They graciously gave us a second tree, around the corner from the first one. There wasn't a tree in this area prior to the tornado, but they allotted a few extra, to beautify the complex once again. This was the crappy "extra" tree....hardly any leaves, super skinny.
I didn't care. They were living things. I treated them with as much love as my pets. I put small fencing around them, watered them, fed them weekly. I planted annuals in nutrient rich soil around their bases. Yup, I talked to them. Here is a recent pic of the first tree, 2 years later, April 2013...the replacement of the Old Woman....
She flowers in late April/early May, then goes lush green...
But what made me so happy today was finding out what the second tree was made of...the afterthought...the "extra" tree....a thriving Japanese Lilac tree. I can't tell you how blessed I feel.
The base of the Lilac tree has the an elemental garden with colors represented in coordinating directional corners. North South East West/Earth Fire Air Water. She is the center, She is the Spirit.
I secretly wanted the co-op to get rid of the tree, but knew if I requested it, my suggestion would not be entertained at all. Everything costs money. Uprooting and removal of the tree would be crazy...it wasn't hurting anybody. I felt guilty not wanting the tree there. She (I saw the tree as an old, wise woman) had such history...she'd seen children grow up, people move in and out of the community, housed countless families of squirrels and birds and God knows what other living beings. We knew we would just have to deal with the tree until....well, it wasn't there anymore. This discomfort I felt about her would have to take care of itself somehow.
She was pretty big....split the front yard in two. She had this bulky presence that just didn't sit right with me.
Here are a couple of pictures as it stood in front of our place. You can see how pathetic the grass is.
On September 16, 2010 a category EF-1 tornado ripped through our development. Winds sustaining 90-100 miles per hour were recorded. Windows were blown out, homes were destroyed, a woman was killed less than a mile from our home on the Grand Central Parkway . A falling tree landed on her car.
The following link is a video taken from an apartment building less than a mile from my current home..ironically, this was shot from the apartment building Larry and I lived in before we bought the co-op.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsiJ3z3WbhM
I was home alone with the kids. It was about 5:15pm and I was feeding them dinner. I hadn't watched the news all day so I had no idea what was coming. I knew it was raining, I knew it was windy...but suddenly, the sky turned a strange shade of green and rain was shooting in through the window horizontally. I KNEW something BIG was happening. I grabbed both children, put them on the couch and laid on top of them. The noise we heard was deafening...like the building was falling down around us. The walls were shaking and the light coming in through the windows completely disappeared. Then a crescendo, a huge crashing sensation...not just a sound or a vibration. An ending. It was quiet. The whole episode was only about 5 minutes, but in that short time, so much changed.
The light peeking through the windows was different, camouflaged by branches and leaves. I ran from room to room, trying to figure out what happened. I'd never experienced a tornado before, and because I had no warning of a weather occurrence, I was still incredibly confused. When I got to the third room and still saw greenery pushed up against the window panes, I put 2 and 2 together.
My husband is standing next to the base of the tree. She didn't snap, she was UPROOTED and toppled . When the arborists dismembered her, we counted the rings...70+ years old. She had a great life.
She went down with a huge finale!
Other trees went down too, but my girl made the biggest impression. An entire bedroom was taken out.
Fast forward to the following April....Mike Bloomberg donates 18,000 trees to the 5 boroughs, our neighborhood is awarded a majority of them due to the impact of the tornado. I was happy to hear it, but I knew that even if we hadn't been that fortunate, my husband and I would have taken care of it ourselves. I was concerned that the donated trees would be weak saplings, not worth the care they would take in order for them to root. But, oh, I was wrong.....
The first tree to grace our property was a decent size, about 10 feet tall and it had itty bitty purple buds on it...maybe 15 or 20 of them. They planted it right were the grand old girl had stood. Within a few days, the purple buds all fell off. There weren't a lot of leaves and the trunk was very thin.
They graciously gave us a second tree, around the corner from the first one. There wasn't a tree in this area prior to the tornado, but they allotted a few extra, to beautify the complex once again. This was the crappy "extra" tree....hardly any leaves, super skinny.
I didn't care. They were living things. I treated them with as much love as my pets. I put small fencing around them, watered them, fed them weekly. I planted annuals in nutrient rich soil around their bases. Yup, I talked to them. Here is a recent pic of the first tree, 2 years later, April 2013...the replacement of the Old Woman....
She flowers in late April/early May, then goes lush green...
But what made me so happy today was finding out what the second tree was made of...the afterthought...the "extra" tree....a thriving Japanese Lilac tree. I can't tell you how blessed I feel.
The base of the Lilac tree has the an elemental garden with colors represented in coordinating directional corners. North South East West/Earth Fire Air Water. She is the center, She is the Spirit.
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