Broom in a Plum Tree

I noticed this broom last winter. It is by the side of the freeway.  At first, I thought it was in a hawthorne.  Upon closer inspection, however, I found that it was in a plum tree.  The broom seems to be sterile- there were no flowers in it.  A non-blooming plum tree seems pretty worthless as an ornamental, but I think I will try propagating it anyway.  I will likely graft it high on the rootstock, so that it will look like a giant lollipop.  

On the Hunt for Gold

A few years ago, my friend Don Howse told me about a golden noble fir that he found in the late 90s.  Don is conifer person who is widely known in conifer circles.  His nursery, Porterhowse farms, has been one of the go-to places for specialty conifers in the US for decades.

When Don told me about this tree, he mentioned that he found it while going into the bushes to go pee.  He jokingly said that it should be called 'Golden Showers'.  Of course, I love goofy names for plants, so I decided that I would try to propagate this one.  The tree is in the central Oregon Cascades, so it is a bit of drive to get there for me.  I hadn't made it down there.

A few weeks ago, when I went to get the cuttings from the juniper broom, I noticed that there was no snow in the pass.  I almost drove down to the gold noble fir that day, but I didn't have the directions with me.  Instead, I tried on Sunday.  During the drive and the hike, I thought a lot about the state of my life, and how it has been affected by my emotions.  I don't know what follows is going to make sense, but I'm going to relate some of what I was thinking.

Sunday was probably my only day off for the next few weeks.  I'm currently working three jobs-  60 - 70 hours per week.

Let me explain that.  It is going to involve talking about my ex boyfriend, so please bear with me :)

There have been a few times in my life when I've felt trapped, financially and vocationally.  I can point to the series of decisions that I made that led to these traps, but many of the factors were out of my control.  In the past few weeks, I've had a bit of an attitude change.  I have decided to get really serious about pulling myself up by my bootstraps.  Oddly enough, this was inspired by my ex.

I can think of a number of examples of people in my life who have been...  what is the nice way of saying it?    In the extreme, we are talking about sociopathy.  This isn't the extreme, however.  These people, including my ex boyfriend, one or two former coworkers, and perhaps only one friend, lean in that direction on the spectrum.  If they lean in the direction of sociopathy, I probably lean in the direction of histrionics.  But those are the extremes.

In my case, I can have emotional reactions to events in my life that are pretty disabling.  Two and a half years ago, my job was dismantled, and the resulting fall-out make me act out in all sorts of strange ways.  I've been trying to recover (financially and emotionally) ever since.

On the other end of things...  I know these people who are able to down-regulate their emotional states in ways that are beyond my capacity.  The trouble is that sometimes they do this at the expense of the people around them.  I think that have less emotion in general also comes with less empathy for others, so I don't think they really notice when they throw other people under the bus to regulate their emotions.  Examples of this are my friend who used to put key-logging software on his girlfriend's computer. he would read her email in order to keep tabs on her, and he seemed to have no compunction or remorse about doing so.

My ex boyfriend would treat me unkindly (sometimes in puzzling and strange ways) in order to manipulate the level of intimacy in the relationship.  The fact that he was really hurting me didn't really register-  he was just doing what he needed to do.

There is something magical
about an icy mountain cataract.

I think that in the US, with its current political climate of hyper-capitalism, people with that temperament thrive.  Both my friend and my ex-boyfriend are quite successful in their corporate jobs.  When I think about how either of them would have handled what happened to me two and a half years ago, I am sure that neither of them would have left the job.  They would have down-regulated their emotional reaction to the job (assuming that it was very strong to begin with) and they would have put their financial security above any emotional concerns in the priority list.

A few weeks ago, I starting thinking about just borrowing a page from their playbooks.  What if I just put my emotions aside and just did whatever was necessary to take care of myself, financially?  So far (and it has only been a few weeks) it has been oddly freeing.  I am not attached to the outcomes of my jobs, and I'm not particularly worried about the quality of my work.  I do the best that I can, and I ask for what I need to do my jobs...  but beyond that, I just don't think about it.

I have started a night job at a large retail chain store.  This pretty much eats up all of my free time, so getting out in the woods isn't going to be happening much for a while.  When I got down there, I had to stop a few miles short of the tree.  The snow was getting to be too much for my car, so I parked and tried walking the last 5 miles or so.  After a couple of miles, I could tell that it just wasn't going to happen.  If I had full weekends, I could go down to that gold tree and do an overnight hike in to it.  I have a warm sleeping bag and a tent, so I could do some snow camping.  I look forward to visiting that area.  There are different species of conifers down there- notably Abies concolor- that don't grow as far north as my usual haunts.  I suspect that there may be other surprises waiting for me :)

The first Abies concolor tree
I've ever seen in the wild.

Right now, however, I am letting my emotions (and the things about which I am passionate) take a back seat.  The tree will have to wait until the fall.  This might be the only year for a long time when I could get scions in late winter, but it isn't going to work out.  Fall grafts are harder to do, but I have no choice.

The trip was not a loss, however.  The views of the mountains and the snow-covered trees were well worth the drive.

A Gem in a Forest of Sickness

A few years ago, my dad and I drove over to Bend, OR.  Dad had never been over that way, and he wanted to explore.  I hadn't been over there for a good 20 years or so, so I was game.

Of course, I slept for large chunks of the car ride.  There is something about the motion of a car that I find comforting, and I nearly always have the urge to sleep on a road trip.  The fact that my dad likes to begin his day at fuck-thirty in the morning (a term I invented a couple of years ago when I was logging with him) also added to my sleepiness.

Eastern Oregon has a harsher, drier climate than the west side of the state does.  Much of the landscape is covered in Artemesia species (sagebrush) and Juniperus occidentalis, the western juniper.  Before settlement by Europeans, the landscape would burn regularly, keeping the junipers in check. Modern fire suppression has allowed the junipers to really take over, altering the mix of species.  I've read that they are able to suck up most of the available water, taking it from other species which once dominated the landscape.

Fire suppression has had a heavy impact on the forests of the Western US.  In fact, the lush forests that we currently see- particularly in the drier interior regions- don't closely resemble the pre-settlement woodlands.  Regular fires cleared out brush and killed saplings, keeping the woods more open.  Far fewer trees were lucky enough to grow to maturity in those days.  Those that did faced less competition for space, water, and nutrients.  I can only imagine what those forests looked like.

I digress, however.

Juniperus occidentalis is prone to brooms caused by mistletoe.  Any time you see more than one broom in a tree, there is almost no chance that they are two random mutations- it pretty much has to be disease or parasites.  As I looked at the forests of brooms, I thought about how impossible it would be to find a good broom in that mess








Then we drove by a striking broom, right by the side of the road.  I am not sure it could have been more obviously healthy.  It is so obvious that I'm sure other conifer geeks have seen it in the past.  At the time, I didn't have a pole pruner on me, so I couldn't collect any pieces.  I'd also heard that this species doesn't like the wetter, coastal climate.

This weekend, I finally made the drive back over there to collect some cuttings.  I've heard that this species is a bitch to propagate, so I'm not really optimistic about my chances for success.  Alas, I must try.

While I was out there, I happened to see a columnar form as well.  I took a couple of cuttings, just in case.

After all that, I met my friend Alan for lunch in Terrebonne, OR.  We used to be housemates in the 90s, and it has been a couple of years since I'd seen him.  We caught up over lunch, and I headed back home.

Emily

My camera is no longer interfacing with my computer.  I've thought about getting an SD card reader, so I could upload photos, but I have not done it yet.

This picture was taken by my friend Janet on her iPhone.  It isn't the best photo (no offense Janet- we were not working under the best of conditions.)  but it gives you the idea.

A member of my local rock garden society found this broom after a recent storm blew it out of a Douglas fir tree near her house.  Since I've talked about my broom hunting habits at meetings, she knew who to call :)

It is a nice little shape, and it has a very deep green color.  If I can manage to get it to take, I think it might make a very nice cultivar.  My friend requested that I name it 'Emily' after her late daughter.

Wasted Summer

Last summer fucking sucked.

I worked my ass off, and spent nearly the entire time away from home.  My garden went to hell.  I was in a relationship with an unkind person, and I didn't get a chance to get out into the woods at all.

The reason that I bring this up (other than to express my discontent to the world), is because I have no idea how I'm going to have enough plant-hunting stories to get through the winter on this blog.  I am determined to do it, however.

A few weeks ago, when I was out with my friend David, I also collected some scions from a broom that I'd found just a few yards away from the Engelmann Spruce broom I posted about last time.  This one is an Abies amabilis- the Pacific Silver Fir.  It is a handsome species, and I have heard that there are very few forms of it in cultivation.

Unfortunately, this broom was hard to photograph.  The understory of the woods is a thick tangle of Taxus brevifolia, and there is very low light.  I am not entirely sure if this broom is a good one or not.  This species is prone to a rust that produces ugly little tangled brooms.

In this picture, however, it looks like it might be healthy.

I did several grafts, so we will see how they turn out. .








I'm pretty amazed by this little area.  I've found about 4 mutations within a small radius of a few hundred yards.  One of my plans for last summer was to camp up there and spend some time searching.  I know that there are more treasures to be found!

Next summer, I will do that.  I will not be stopped by love nor money- which are the two things that stopped me this year.

Deep in the Woods

My friend David is a good guy.  He has listened to me freak out endlessly over my recently broken heart, and he is willing to go along on crazy outings.  This past weekend, he waded deep into the Taxus thickets to retrieve scions from this broom.

David and I had spent the morning pressing cider (we make hard cider every fall), and we were undecided as to how to spend the afternoon.  A few days before, my neighbor had given me a box of 12 gauge shot gun shells, so I thought that we should head up to the woods to use them on this broom.  

It is in a Picea engelmannii- the Engelmann Spruce.  One year, a few years back, I found several brooms or unusual trees of this species.  This one is located in the cascade mountains, a stone's throw from where I found Taxus brevifolia 'Guthrie'.  In fact, I would not have found this broom if I hadn't been exploring the extensive thickets of Taxus in the area.  There is an over-story of mature Douglas fir, western larch, and western hemlock trees.  There were a few Engelmann spruce and Pacific silver fir mixed in as well.

You can't see this broom from the road.  In fact, it is hard to see even when you are close to it, because the canopy is so dense.  I had David go out to the tree and hide behind it while I shot the broom.  That way he would be close enough to see where the pieces landed.   I had to be about 30 yards away to get a clear shot at it.  I shot it repeatedly, but I was only able to get two small twigs to come down.  One of those twigs was too damaged to use, so I only have one grafted up!  I really hope it takes.  If it doesn't, I will be climbing that tree next year.  

Sometimes, I'm tempted to just cut down the tree to get the broom.  I think you'd have to be an asshole to do something like that, though.   Plus, if the grafts didn't take, I wouldn't be able to try grafting it again in the future.  So I'm stuck with my shotgun and my tree-climbing gear.

In a Strange Land

This summer, I visited the Boston area.  I was struck by how beautiful the forests are there.  They are shorter and more tangled-looking than our Western forests, but they have their own distinct beauty.

Pinus strobus, the Eastern White Pine, was the dominant conifer in the area.  I did happen to find a broom very close to the Boston metro area, but I doubt that I will ever make it back there to collection scions.  Plus, it was in a suburban area where I doubt that I could use a gun to retrieve them.

Nonetheless, it was fun to find this broom in an unfamiliar place.  It just goes to show that mutations are ubiquitous :)