A Verdant Pyramid

It seems like I find the best stuff in the most remote locations.  On that trip up to visit Sasquatch Love a couple of weeks ago, my brother and I drove to a location a few miles south of the Canadian border in Idaho.  The Idaho Panhandle is the stronghold of Pinus monticola- the Western White Pine.

It is a strikingly handsome species.  I remember discovering it on my own as a kid- I was maybe 6 or 7 years old.  There was one growing in the woods behind our house.  As a kid, I spent a lot of time alone out there, talking to myself, singing, and generally daydreaming.  In retrospect, I suppose that is how I survived growing up in that culture as a gay, intellectual kid.  I was bullied a lot in school, and I had a definite sense of how much the local population would hate my guts if they knew who I actually was.  These days, I have a lot of contempt for that community, its religious and cultural sensibilities.

I digress.  As I said, I coped with this situation by being a dreamy kid who spent a lot of time out in the woods- in all times of the year.  As I was becoming aware of individual trees and their species, I noticed this one lone pine with soft, bluish needles.  It had one limb that was low enough for me to climb into the canopy.  The sap had a delightful aroma- more pleasant than the Pinus contorta and Pinus ponderosa trees to which I was accustomed.  I had a secret relationship with that tree.  It was a special friend.  In its branches I felt magically connected to the woods, and safe from the hate the coursed through the community around me.

One day, I told my dad about my favorite tree.  He instantly knew which one I was talking about, and was excited that I had discovered the tree on my own.  He told me about the imported fungus that had nearly destroyed the species when he was a kid.  As I grew up, I noticed that my dad had a reverence for white pines.  He may not have needed to hide out the same way I did- but he also had a sense that there was something magical about these trees.

As an adult with a hard core mechanistic world-view, I don't have much room in my head for magical thinking anymore.  My sense of spirituality and sacredness in general is still there- though it doesn't lend itself to religious make-believe.  White pines are sacred to me because they survived a devastating plague.  They are very appealing to the aesthetic sense of humans (pretty much anyone who sees one is bound to comment on how pretty they are.)  Even though I know that the trees have no souls or thought, part of me still feels a sense of gratitude for the shelter and childhood fantasy that they offered me.  To me they represent a transcendence of bullshit and violent ignorance.

Anyhow, my brother and I found the tree in the picture.  White pines don't really come into their own until they are decades old.  They tend to be spindly until their branches really develop.  This little sapling- shorter than I am- was already forming a handsome little tree.  Several of its neighbors are in the picture- so you can compare.  I am not quite sure of the color, however.  The tree is in shadow, whereas its neighbors are in the sun.  Even so, the tree looks like it might be a little darker green.

My dad actually had some Pinus seedlings in pots.  If I had known that while I was up there, I could have tried grafting it up that weekend.  Alas, I will have to do it next year.  Or perhaps I could borrow a snow mobile again this winter- though the tree will most likely be buried in snow.

I suppose that one of these years I will just have to buy a snow mobile, though.

Weekend Road Trip from Hell!

I realize this may not be an exciting picture.  For context, have a look at Sasquatch Love.

Last Saturday, my brother and I took a road trip to visit Sasquatch Love. We had to hike in from the locked gate- maybe a mile or so.  There were bow hunters on mountain bikes, as well as a couple of horseback riders.  I'd never been there on a weekend before, so I was surprised that there were actually people up that far.  It only took three shots to get the piece that you see in the pic above.  I grafted up a dozen or so, and then saved the cones, which were full of seeds.  We'll see what the progeny look like.

We also headed to another weeping spruce and collected scions from it.  I got what I needed on the first shot on that one.

On the trip, we found a grove of old growth Thuja plicata, Tsuga heterophylla, and Pinus monticola.  You don't see a lot of large Pinus monticola trees, since most of them were killed by White Pine Blister Rust in the 40s.  This tree was four feet in diameter at breast height.

The entire grove was truly an awe-inspiring place.  I had discovered it last summer when I got lost, looking for a bog.I always tell myself that no time in the woods is wasted.  You never know what you are going to find out there...  and just being out among the trees is calming.. Walking into a grove of ancient trees after a frustrating, bumbling search in the woods was truly a treat :)

How I Ruined My Camera

I spent a month logging with my dad this summer.  Working as a substitute teacher didn't really leave me with enough extra cash to make it through the summer without working, and I knew that my dad could have used the help.  So I spent a few weeks cutting bear-damaged cedar and various odds and ends.

He's been logging that same piece of property since before I was born.  Since he does selective cutting, there is more timber on his property now than when he started.

At any rate, it was kind of cool to be able to hunt for plants while I was working.  While I didn't find anything spectacular, I found this interesting weeping cedar- Thuja plicata.  This is a really big, long-lived forest tree that lives in the western United States.  The fragrant wood resists rot, so it is the material of choice for fences.

The form is upright (this is a tall, nearly full-grown tree), but the upper branches are a bit pendulous.  Below is a more typical crown of another tree for comparison:

As always...  this is something that I'll have to evaluate in cultivation to see if it is worth growing.

On the last day of logging, I took the 12 gauge and the camera up on the skidder (the machine that you use to drag the logs out of the woods).  That gun kicks like you wouldn't believe.  I shot out a couple of pieces, and then figured it wasn't worth getting bruises by trying to get more.  I stuck the cuttings when I got home, so we'll see how they do.

Thuja plicata is in the Cypress family.  The great thing about this family is that most of the species in it are really easy to propagate.  You can take cuttings in the late summer or fall- instead of doing grafting in the middle of the winter.  It is so much nicer when you don't have to worry about a long trek in the middle of January :)

The bad part of this story is that I left my camera on the skidder.  It would have been fine during a normal August (we don't get rain in late summer very often), but this year we had some thunder showers.  My poor camera got wet and hasn't been the same since.  I've put it in front of a fan for several days- and it will take pictures now.  But the zoom button and the menu controls don't work.  I might have to try putting it in a bag of rice- I hear that sometimes work.

Since I'm on a limited budget these days, I can't just run out and buy a new one.  At least it still works a bit.  I can still take pictures- but they may not be zoomed in as much as I'd like.

That isn't really going to stop me from going out and finding new plants, though :)

Lovely- but dramatic enough?

Here's a larch that is growing by my dad's house.  When he logged the place, he felled a larger doug fir away from this tree.  When it stood alone, its graceful form was much more apparent.  It is a very lovely tree- the branches have a very graceful sweep.  As I look through the woods at wild stands of these trees, I'm struck by how variable they are.  Few are as graceful as this one is, but there is quite a bit of variation in terms of branch shape and general habit.  The question that needs to be answered in this case is whether the tree is worth propagating or not.  Is it strikingly unusual enough for people to notice?  

I've been watching this tree for about five years.  It seems to be pretty stable in terms of this branching pattern.  Perhaps the next step is to graft a few up and try them in different environments.  Even if it doesn't end up being worthy of propagation, it is a tree that I wouldn't mind having in my yard.  Not every person needs to be a supermodel to be beautiful, either.   In my quest for ever more unusual plants, I need to remind myself to take time to appreciate slightly more ordinary plants as well.