Life and Dying in the Backyard

Every spring I am surprised by my plants coming back after the winter. This year is no exception despite temperatures that reached the 80s in February and the 30s in April, with very little snow but lots of rain. Although some plants did not get as tall or as showy as usual, they did flower. The same is true of the trees and the shrubs. Both the apple and the pear trees have flowered, despite being severely cut back early this year. Where there are flowers there will be fruit, albeit fruit too high for me to easily pick.

Dogwood flowers in 2016 (Margo D. Beller)

This post will focus on one particular tree.

I have lived in my house for over 25 years. In my suburban neighborhood "woods" means trees on the property border. Any trees planted in the front or back yards have been put in by the homeowner. Over the years I've had to cut down yard trees for various reasons. I have, however, planted two trees - the blue spruce we nicknamed Spruce Bringsgreen and a flowering dogwood.

I planted the dogwood because in the fall it is supposed to produce red berries for the birds. Since that tree was planted in 2007 I've learned berries are not guaranteed. Like the other flowering plants, it depends on the weather. Some years there would be lovely pink flowers on the dogwood. But that did not necessarily mean berries would follow. Some years yes, some years no. The fresh green leaves would go red in the fall. 

Dogwood berries, 2019. Note the discoloration
in the autumn leaves. (Margo D. Beller)

Since planting that tree I took it as a given that once established it would always be there. But like any other living thing, trees die. Sometimes they are killed by man, who cuts them down or pollutes the air. Sometimes they are killed by insects, as was the ash tree I had to cut down because of the emerald ash borer. Sometimes, however, they are killed by bacteria or fungus.

I don't remember when during the winter I first began to notice one branch was missing some of its bark but I did eventually notice, especially when more bare patches began to appear. I became alarmed when the apple and pear trees, the viburnum, the forsythia and the lilacs started leafing out and the dogwood remained bare. I thought the tree was dead.

My first indication something was wrong.
(Margo D. Beller)

I was going to write about it here. I even had a name for my post - Dead as a Dogwood.

But reports of the dogwood's demise were premature - after a recent heavy rain it started to leaf out.

Not everywhere, however. The part of the tree where the bark has come off remains bare, as are a few of the lower branches. 

I did some research into dogwood diseases, and to my horror discovered there are quite a few. The one that appears the closest to what is happening with this tree has the awful name of "crown canker."

Hoping for the best, I wrapped the lower part of the tree to prevent the bark that was just starting to flake from getting worse. I used my lopper on some of the lower branches and will have to use a saw or chainsaw on other parts. Because the tree went straight to leafing there will be no flowers. The leaves are small and I doubt there will be fruit. I don't even know if the tree will be alive next year.

(Margo D. Beller)

As I looked at some of the pictures I've taken of this tree over the years I realize the signs were there: discoloring in the leaves, the irregular production of fruit. It was not until the bark started falling off that I realized this tree is sick. Should I have used the sprinkler last year instead of letting the grass go brown and deprive the tree roots of water during the summer drought? Should I have added more mulch to what I had already put down at the base of the tree? 

Dogwood leaves, 2023 (Margo D. Beller)

I don't know. This year I'll use the sprinkler more and I'll use my saw on the dead branches. The tree may be disfigured but I hope it will recover. Or it may die. Living things die, even trees.

In the meantime, as I have for the past two years, I have put up the house wren nest box on one of the living dogwood branches. I heard a wren singing the other morning as I put out the feeders. The bird investigated the box, then flew to another yard. Will it be back? That, too, is unknown.

Christmas in October

Red and green are the traditional colors of Christmas. There are differing reasons why. According to one site I looked at, use of these colors dates back to the 1300s. As the site puts it, many believe the green represents the eternal life of Jesus while red symbolizes his shed blood. 

Viburnum and berries, 2021 (Margo D. Beller)

However, a different site ties the red to advertising, specifically the suit Santa wore in Coca-Cola's first Christmas-themed print ad, which was extremely successful. The green is thought to be related to holly and other evergreens as part of the holiday's pagan past.

Right now, in October, you could say Christmas has come early for the birds.

The leaves of the viburnum in my backyard are a bright green, contrasting with the clusters of red berries that formed once the spring flowers faded. The same was true for the dogwood.

These fruits are important in the lives of the birds migrating south for the winter. When birds finish their overnight flights, they are very hungry and need food for the energy to continue their journeys. When it gets cold, insects are hard to come by unless they are pried out from under tree bark, as woodpeckers can do with their long, hard bills.

But for other birds, particularly fruit eaters such as robins, catbirds and cedar waxwings, my fruit-laden dogwood was like a big neon sign at a rest stop.

Dogwood berries and reddening leaves.
(Margo D. Beller)

The overabundance of rain we've had for most of this year has been very good to the trees and shrubs. This year a black cherry tree at the edge of my property was laden with fruit. At a certain point in the late summer, robins would fly out from the nearby yew hedge and pick off the cherries, sometimes being very acrobatic in the process.

These cherries are long gone. Several weeks ago I noticed the dogwood was covered with red berries. I also noticed red was coming into the green leaves. Nothing much happened except for the leaves getting redder each day. 

And then, boom: A catbird appeared from a nearby shrub and flew into the tree and moved throughout, eating. So did cardinals and house finches that didn't feel like eating my sunflower seeds. One weekday morning, as I was finishing my coffee on the porch, I saw movement in the tree and saw a small bird flitting around that turned out to be a very special guest, a Tennessee warbler - a first for my yard! It was a one-day wonder. Soon flocks of robins started hitting the tree and now just about all the berries are gone.

How did the birds know when the dogwood berries were ripe enough to eat? I don't know but I do know when the leaves had turned completely red, that is when the most birds showed up. So there may be a connection.

Black cherries before the robins got to them.
(Margo D. Beller)

Many plants fruit at this time of year. The yew hedge was filled with soft red berries eaten by birds and squirrels. The squirrels also seem partial to the small black berries that form in the privet shrubs. Crab apples are particularly prized by mockingbirds, robins and cedar waxwings.These are just a small sampling of plants whose fruits help birds during migration.  

And, of course, they also feed those birds that stick around for the winter, or those that stop their southbound flight in my area. So when the red berries of the viburnum ripen, perhaps after a few frosts, there will be food for the chickadees, titmice and other yard birds.

So these berry-producing plants (like the food from seed heads of spent flowers and weeds) are the gift that keeps on giving, both for the birds and me watching them.

A Hole in the Sky

I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree.
-- Joyce Kilmer

What would Jersey boy Joyce Kilmer think of the suburbs now? I don't think he'd be too happy.

My new frontyard view: Suburban lawn just so, hedges clipped,
inconvenient tree removed, big hole in the sky.
(Margo D. Beller)

When he wrote his poet in 1914, his home state was not nearly as built up as it is now. There were no ribbons of multi-lane superhighways crisscrossing the land. There were no "office parks" on what was once farmland. There were no sprawling housing or retail developments with names like "The Preserve," "The Collection," "Town Centre" or "The Shoppes at ..." 

And I'm willing to bet there were many more trees. (Warning: Another jeremiad ahead.)

I have been living in the northern NJ suburbs for over 25 years after decades in parts of New York City. I wanted more space, quiet and privacy. Now I have my quarter acre, different trees and shrubs (some I planted, most already here) and birds coming to feeders. Much of the time it is quiet, so quiet I can hear cars or conversations from some distance away.

But there are things about the suburbs that still disturb me after all this time.

Large areas of woods have been removed for shopping malls along one major road near my home, creating more traffic (as well as more stop lights to handle it). It is still hard to look at one of the supermarkets I visit without remembering the woods torn down to build it.

When it comes to residential development, the unspoken mantra here is, I do what I want in my yard. As long as it doesn't affect you, it's none of your business. I don't know what my neighbors (with one exception) think of the bird feeders or my deer fencing or my compost pile but since it's in my yard and not affecting their property it's not their problem.

When the longtime neighbor across the street, the one-man homeowners association who has taken loud and long exception to the deer fencing in my front yard, decided to cut one of the very tall trees in his backyard, it was hard for me to watch.

My new backyard view, with remains of viburnum in center.
(Margo D. Beller)

The crew, using horrible-sounding saws and a grinder, took a day to destroy this tree I've seen from my front door for 25 years. They also cut some of the lower branches of the remaining three, which was a relief considering I thought he would be removing all four. But what was left behind looks unnatural, ugly. There is a big hole where the tree used to be. All this guy cared about, I'm guessing, is the damage this tree was causing to the fence he had put in when the trees were, no doubt, much smaller. (This is based on what MH saw in that backyard when he was returning from an errand.)

This neighbor is not alone. Many put trees and shrubs too close to a fence or a house foundation and have to take them out before there's too much structural damage.

In addition, with the improving economy - until the coronavirus closing of businesses threw millions of people out of work and whacked it down to Great Depression levels - many of the houses on my street have new owners. It seems one of the first things these people do to make the house their own is rip up what look to me like perfectly good plants. One new homeowner obliterated a big, lovely, perennial flower garden created by the previous owner when Hurricane Sandy in 2012 toppled a spruce in the front yard. It's been replaced by a lawn. Another took down two huge pines in that front yard, which would've thrown welcome shade on the house in summer, after judging them to be too close. They were replaced with tiny plants on either side of a new front path.

I like trees, even those that drop leaves or pods I am forced to rake every year. They breathe in the carbon dioxide we exhale and breathe out the oxygen we need. They provide shade. They provide a place for birds to rest, forage, build a nest. Without trees, flooding rains would wash away soil. Lawns would burn to a crisp. My mid-Atlantic state would look like someplace out of the wide-open West. 

But hack back they do, every year, whether the plants are healthy and flowering or not.

One fewer tree for birds like the white-breasted nuthatch to use for rest and
finding food. (Margo D. Beller)

Then there are the yard nuts, the people who cut their lawns every week whether it's needed or not or who, in the case of my backyard neighbor (a woman I've had problems with for years), decided to cut back or down every shrub, planted by her parents, on the edge of her lawn so she could have an easier time mowing. In 25 years out here I've never understood why people feel they must cut back trees or flowering shrubs like forsythia in spring instead of waiting until the flowers are gone or until fall when the plants would go dormant anyway. I guess human convenience trumps all.

One such shrub this woman cut way back was a huge viburnum I'd always thought was on my property until MH, hearing my screams (ignored by the neighbor) went out to check the property line and confirmed that, unfortunately, what was left behind was on her side of the line. No more place for birds, no more privacy.

The birds have since adapted and use other shrubs. But I have not adapted so well because there is a gaping hole.

However, I can do something about this particular situation - plant my own tall trees or shrubs to fill the hole on my side of the property line and block this neighbor out (and vice versa).

I don't think Robert Frost had the NJ suburbs in mind when he wrote that "good fences make good neighbors," but in this case it fits.