The Daily Prompt: Trees

I laughed when I saw that the Daily Prompt for today was Trees because trees are a major focus of my life right now. I am managing editor for a monthly Pacific Northwest GreenFriends publication. This month we had a special feature section on trees. Last month, I had an interesting experience with a tree that I named the Guardian. (I subsequently wrote two posts about that tree.) And, with the help of a friend, I have started clearing the blackberry vines, ivy and other invasive plants from the Greenbelt lot that is located behind my Seattle home.

Among the trees I have “freed” are two Hawthorn trees. When I showed the big tree to a neighbor, he pointed out that the smaller one to the east of it was actually part of the same tree. In the photo below you can see both of these trees. Also notice the height of the blackberry vines behind the big tree. This whole lot was covered with those densely packed vines a month ago.

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I took the photo above last week; below are some I snapped today.

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Large Hawthorn tree

 

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Base of the tree close to where the trunk splits in two. Some of the trunk is still immersed in the blackberry vines.

 

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Long trunk connecting the two trees

 

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The small tree forms

 

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Small tree

 

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The smaller tree is being overpowered by bamboo. I will need to learn more about bamboo.

I am thoroughly enjoying my new passion. I think I could spend the rest of my life working in this lot. I’ve seen so many amazing things already… so there will be many more blog posts to come.

12 thoughts on “The Daily Prompt: Trees”

  1. Eiric can give you some ideas about the bamboo. One of the most basic is to dig a trench around where you don’t want it to go (a foot and a half deep to two feet deep). It will send out shots and you just keep cutting them off. You can also put down a barrier but can still fail to halt their advance! Good luck – we got ride of most of our bamboo and have just a couple in containers.

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    1. I know. I don’t know how much I will do with it. At this point am just going to take out the dead stalks. I also don’t know what I will do about the blackberries. Nothing has been dug out so they will come back. I just figure it is one day at a time and anything helps.

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  5. I had a friend who tried to get rid of the bamboo in her yard by cutting it down. It just kept coming back. She finally hired a gardener who taught her to cut the bamboo short and drop a bit of rock salt down the tube. It will die.

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