This past summer my good friend, Consulting Arborist Carl Cathcart took me to see an unusual weeping hemlock in a suburb of Boston. He had shown it to me earlier in the spring, when we got to see it from the road. This time, he had gotten permission from the owners to examine the tree close [...]
Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category
Remarkable weeping hemlock
Posted in Miscellaneous, Plant management, Trees, tagged Arboriculture, Carl Cathcart, Plant management, Trees, trunk flare, weeping hemlock on October 27, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Boston hemlock
Posted in Miscellaneous, Opportunistic plants, Plant management, Trees, tagged Plant management, tree issues, Volunteer plants on July 2, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The other day I was on Beacon Hill and spotted this mostly dead hemlock tree, completely swathed in Boston ivy: Perhaps the owners were simply neglecting their courtyard garden, but I like to think that they saw the mature tree’s size as an asset to the place, and decided to use the deadwood as an [...]
To the beech
Posted in Arboriculture, Miscellaneous, Plant management, Trees, tagged Arboriculture, Carl Cathcart, Hartney Greymont, inarching, Jack Alexander, Plant management, tree grafting, tree issues, Trees on May 16, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
I took a great class this past January at the Arnold Arboretum. It was called Grafting Techniques for Ornamental Trees, and was taught by Jack Alexander, the Arboretum’s Plant Propagator. Jack, who is not only an extremely talented plantsman but an excellent teacher, taught us how to prepare cuttings, how to make several different kinds [...]
Ancient trees
Posted in Arboriculture, Miscellaneous, Plant management, Trees on April 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
If we can clone crabapples, maples, and chamaecyparis, why can’t we clone the enormous redwoods that stand as the world’s tallest trees? Well, apparently we can. This article in Sunday’s New York Times (4/10/2011) explains how a group of arborists dedicated to propagating and planting clonal stands of coastal and giant sequoias, using tissue and cuttings [...]
Herbie — what remains
Posted in Miscellaneous, Plant management, Trees, tagged champion trees, environment, Herbie the Yarmouth elm, nature, Plant management, root flare, tree issues, Trees, trunk flare on March 9, 2010 | 7 Comments »
Yesterday I drove through Yarmouth, Maine, and stopped by the site where Herbie the New England Champion American Elm (Ulmus americana) had lived for over two hundred years before meeting his end this past January (see this post for the story). I wanted to see Herbie’s stump and get a better idea of what 217 [...]
When they say ‘taking place in the trees’, they mean it
Posted in Miscellaneous, Trees, tagged tree houses on February 2, 2010 | 2 Comments »
This set of images popped up on my Google Reader today, and I just have to share them. Click on the highlighted link to Vulgare, a blog on landscape issues, and take a look at the remarkable Chapel Oak in France. Then take a look at Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Optimist,, to [...]
In memoriam
Posted in Miscellaneous, Plant management, Trees, tagged Dutch Elm disease, environment, Herbie the Yarmouth elm, nature, Plant management, tree issues, tree removal, Trees on January 25, 2010 | 3 Comments »
I was in Maine last week, and planned to stop in Yarmouth on Monday to watch the removal of Herbie, the champion American Elm (Ulmus americana) that had finally become too compromised to stay standing. For several months, stories about Herbie and his long-time steward, Yarmouth tree warden Frank Knight (at 101 years old, he [...]
Massachusetts Arbor Day of Service
Posted in Massachusetts Arborists Association, Miscellaneous, Pruning, Trees, tagged MAA, Massachusetts Arborists Association, tree issues on December 31, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The Massachusetts Arborists Association has a new volunteer initiative starting in 2010. They aim to build on the traditional Arbor Day celebration by instituting a statewide volunteer service day on that day, which falls on April 30, 2010. To get the ball rolling, the MAA is inviting anyone to identify potential tree care projects in [...]