Extension Communications
3614 Administrative Services Building
Ames, Iowa 50011-3614
(515) 294-9915
1/25/99
Contacts:
Jeff Iles, Department of Horticulture, (515) 294-0029
Elaine Edwards, Extension Communication Systems, (515)
294-5168
Yard and Garden Column for the Week Beginning Jan. 29
Do You Know Where Your Trees Came From?
By Jeff Iles
Extension horticulturist
Iowa State University Extension
"Pssst! Hey buddy. Today's the day. Pass it on." So, the time had come. After five glorious years growing in the gentle climate of the Pacific Northwest, the trees passed the word that it was time to leave the Oregon nursery we'd called home for our entire lives. But where were we bound? Lots of rumors were circulating -- most of them started by those pain-in-the-bark birches, and you know how they love to gossip and complain. "Oh, I hope we go someplace where it's cool," and "I pray they don't use us as street trees." Whiners, all of them. As for myself, a rugged sugar maple, I was pretty sure I could hack it wherever I ended up, just as long as there weren't any dogs. But in all honesty, I was a bit nervous. Tales of long truck rides to remote towns in the Midwest, knowing you'd be displayed at something called a garden center and the prospect of spending the rest of my life shading playground equipment in front of a fast-food joint was enough to make even tough guys like me think about defoliating. But that would be the way of a coward. Even if I could run, I knew in my heartwood there would be no running away today. It was my turn to dance with the digging machine.
In an instant it was over -- roots severed, plucked out of the ground, burlapped, roped, tied and left sitting above ground looking silly and feeling very vulnerable. And thirsty? Try having more than 50 percent of your roots lopped off and see how you feel. But there was no time for self pity. Another machine driven by a Yosemite Sam look-alike scooped me up and deposited me on the back of a giant 18-wheeler. Feeling a bit woozy, I lost consciousness.
When I came around, I learned there were about 60 of us strapped to the back of a flat-bed trailer piloted by a trucker whose sole intent, it seemed, was to scatter our sorry souls all over the highway. Thankfully, the heavy tarp draped over my companions and me kept us mercifully ignorant of just how close we actually were to meeting the big sequoia in the sky. Everyone was on edge, but all did their best to remain quiet. Except for the birches. Those self-absorbed, narcissistic, fools! "It's too hot. Who pulled off some of my bark?" Somebody should have taken a chain saw to the lot of them years ago. But just as I was about to threaten them with a bronze birch borer larvae (I was bluffing of course), I felt a sharp pain in my trunk. To my horror I discovered the hawthorns had been loaded just to my left. Of course, it wasn't their fault really, but those thorns would test my patience more than once during the long journey. At least those fetid female ginkgos weren't on board.
Finally, the big rig ground to a stop. The tarps were pulled back and we were bathed in the warmth of the Iowa midday sun. After being treated like mushrooms during our three-day trek, we felt a little giddy from the fresh air and sunlight. My first glimpse of the garden center was overwhelming. There were hundreds, no thousands of relatives, neighbors and friends spread out over a couple of acres in nice, neat rows. Most were in pots, but a few sad cases were actually displayed bare-root. What kind of scandalous place was this? Suddenly I was snatched from the trailer and taken to the rear of the nursery where I was stood upright, and covered (my rootball that is) with ground-up pieces of wood. Yes, wood, from trees! We later learned that this nightmarish ritual was necessary to keep our roots from drying out, however, an alternative medium would have been far more preferable. Now with most of my basic needs met, my thoughts turned to the magic fluid ... water. Remember, none of us had been given a proper drink since we left. "Excuse me. Young man. Yes, you with the hose. Can you spare a drink for a weary traveler?" But instead of a thorough dousing, the employee attached a little black tube around my trunk that delivered water to my rootball at an infuriatingly slow pace. Eventually, enough water was delivered, but I would have gladly given a scaffold branch for one of those day-long rains we were accustomed to in Oregon.
Saturday arrived and people were everywhere, and potentially, each one held my fate in his or her hands. But their movements around the nursery were all so predictable. First they fawn over those cute-as-a-bugs-ear crabapples with their dainty little flowers. Give me a break! One good gust of wind and those pretty boys are looking for their flower petals in the next county. Then people drool all over the magnolias. Little do they know that the slightest hint of frost makes their flowers look like burnt strips of bacon. The regal conifers are visited next -- as if being green year-round was something to boast about. But finally, people would saunter down to the shade trees. One couple breezed by dressed as if they were on their way to a black tie formal affair instead of a tree-buying expedition. Everyone had a good laugh when the man accidentally stepped off the sidewalk and lost one of his loafers in the ankle-deep mud. Everyone that is except the oaks, but you know how they are.
Eventually a family came by that actually seemed to know something about trees. They admired my single, straight, central leader. They commented favorably on my evenly spaced branches radiating around my main stem like the spokes of a wheel, and were quite impressed with my blemish-free trunk. Well, almost blemish-free. Those blasted hawthorns! Then, without warning, they tagged me! I was going to my new home.
Now, two weeks later I can honestly say my new digs are starting to feel like home. True, the soil is not as good as it was back in Oregon, but I've been given every opportunity to succeed. I'm well away from power lines, was planted at the proper depth, mulched, given water as needed and there isn't a birch in site. Is this heaven?
ml: isugarden
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