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Jsorens
Buffalo, NY
(Zone 6a)
April 29, 2008
9:42 PM Post #4884632
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This story is moderately long, but I think it has a decent payoff.
When we moved into our house three years ago, there was an unkempt hedge on one side of the front yard. Growing up out of the hedge were some vigorous young saplings. They would sway above the hedge, and the whole thing looked unsightly. For the first two years, I cut them down to the ground in fall, but they grew back quickly, putting on at least four feet in a growing season. At the time I knew next to nothing about gardening or field botany, and I had no idea what they were.
Last summer we pulled out the entire hedge, including the saplings, and replanted. However, I had noticed that there were two of these fast-growing trees on a small strip of public land next door. They were growing up right next to two planted Colorado spruces and out-competing them. One of the neighbors once commented to me how someone should get rid of them (the fast-growing trees). They certainly did look odd, the way they were encircling the spruces with multiple, wide-spreading trunks.
Finally, today I took a twig from one of these trees and sat down to the computer to identify it.
They are American elms, Ulmus americana. There can be no doubt: the twigs, young leaves, and seeds all match this elm species and no other. I can only imagine that several decades ago, my neighborhood was planted with American elms, which must have been wiped out by Dutch elm disease. But apparently they had left a legacy in the seed bank, and their progeny had grown vigorously in the unmowed hedge in our front yard. They probably grew up right next to those spruces because those were the only areas that the town didn't mow on that little strip of land.
Now I feel very guilty for having grubbed up those saplings and wished death on their more mature cousins next door. Of course, had we let them be, they would almost certainly have succumbed to Dutch elm disease eventually, as the trees next door likely will. But you never know what trees will prove resistant to the disease, and I feel as if we have wiped out a little bit of history.
In penance, I will research disease resistant American elm cultivars, and if I can find a suitable one, plant a couple of them in my front yard.
This message was edited Apr 29, 2008 10:16 PM |
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