On Winter Afternoons —
That oppresses,like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes —
Emily Dickenson, #258
Winter is on the way- no matter that I worked outside in the 50 ° sunshine yesterday, with midges floating around my head. I brought in firewood, cut down the elecampne stalks to use as kindling and put boots on all the trees.
Tree boots are a necessity here, where the snow cover is often in place for months at a time and rodents of all sorts tunnel in close to the trunk and damage the soft bark. I use fiberglass window screening – cheap and easily available – and hemp twine that degrades over the course of the winter, softening enough that the tree’s growth will not be impeded if the gardener is tardy with removing it.
I’m habitually behind on my garden work, but this year I found myself with a beautiful day and all the materials to hand. I dug out the bag of screening and found, at the bottom, pieces that I had cut to fit and labeled for future use some years ago. It was funny to hold the screening up to the trunk of say, the Seckel pear, and find it too small by half. I’ve added younger trees to the collection since then so nothing went to waste, but trees – like children- do grow up before you notice.
So I managed all this work in one day instead of having to come inside because my hands are frozen, trying to get it done ahead of the first December snow. In doing so I realized that I have a lot of fruit trees. More than I would have thought and I had no idea I was being casual about the numbers. In an effort to be honest about the extent of my plant fixation, and perhaps stave off buying any more from this year’s Fedco Tree catalogue, here are three tree boots portraits for Winter 2009.
I actually have pictures of all my trees but seriously, overkill. I can list them off though: Red Baron Peach, Belle of George Peach, Clapp Pear, Seckel Pear, Stanley Plum, Blue Permain Apple, 2 Beta Cherries, Russian Crabapple, Westfield-Seek-No-Further Apple, Sargeant Crab, Montmorcery Cherry, un-named apple seedling from Acadia National Park, Black and Pink Crab, Liberty Apple, and a Minnesota 477 apple.
Stanley Plum - one of my oldest trees
Clapp Pear - yellow, conical fruit
Blue Permain apple, very old variety, hasn't cropped yet
Tags: autumn, garden, orchard fruit, weather