Planting the Future

Tending to Trees

We cannot predict the future, but we can plant it. Ten years of planting trees have transformed our yard into a food forest that has the potential to grow and evolve for a hundred years. A mutual intertwining of limbs and hearts weaves our lives together. The trees in our yard are a mix of volunteers and fruit trees that I have purchased and grafted. Some of the best trees are the ones I grafted from local trees that thrive in our area. After harvesting apples and pears from trees in our county, I learned which trees consistently produced well and looked good year after year. Grafting those has brought the accumulated wisdom of generations of tree lovers into our yard. 

A neglected and highly productive apple tree in a public right of way in town

Tending to trees is very gratifying. It is an opportunity to tune into the insentient nature of trees and the sentient grace they embody. When you plant seeds or young trees, their lives are tenuous. Rabbits, mice, drought, and myriad other challenges can end their lives very quickly. If all goes well, they respond to your care and attention and put on tender new growth. 

Wood chip delivery. Wood mulch is the foundation and driver of tree health.

Mulching trees with wood chips and controlling weeds are vital activities at this stage. The wood chips promote life in the soil, which helps keep the tree healthy. The fungi that break down the chips will colonize the soil and form a relationship with the tree. They extract nutrients from the soil and deliver them to the tree. The tree shares sugar with the fungi in return. The fungal roots or mycorrhizae are part of a vast underground network that connects trees together. The fungal roots connect with tree roots, and the trees communicate through this network. These relationships are beyond our understanding. We isolate and study components of this, but it is far more complex than we will ever know. 

In the first couple of years, trees seem so small and vulnerable, but as they grow, almost imperceptibly, they take on a different character. The bark thickens, the trunk enlarges, and branches emerge and take shape. Starting in years 3-4, it is time to start thinking about pruning and shaping the tree. 

This is one of my favorite activities. I walk around the tree and envision the shape I want to see. Trees are very amenable to pruning. They have dormant or reserve buds on their trunk and branches. They are ready to respond to cuts by putting out new growth. 

I grafted my neighbor’s pear tree and spent years tending to it. You can see the approximately 45-degree branch angles and open center as a result.

Apples and pears especially have tremendous vigor that gets channeled into growing straight up. They are hardwired to compete for sunlight. In order to counteract this and harness the power of the tree, you need to encourage the limbs to grow more horizontally. This is where weights and limb spreaders come in. Once you get the primary form of the tree established, you enter into maintenance mode where you are pruning suckers and top growth and maintaining the shape of the tree. This is also when the tree starts reciprocating with fruit. 

Now, we are entering into this period of gifts. Late summer will soon give way to fall, and we will have falling temperatures, falling leaves, and falling fruit that builds into an avalanche of apples and pears. We will gather the fruit, bring it indoors, and capture the sunshine in applesauce and dried fruit.

Conference Pear. You cannot buy a pear like this. When you bite into the soft creamy flesh and the sweetness unfolds on your palate, all of your tending to the tree seems paltry in comparison to this sublime gift.

If you want to create your own trees, then grafting is for you. Grafted trees begin as a branch in your hand. With a sharp knife and a little skill, you connect the branch with roots. And if all goes well, they fuse together, and you now have a little tree of your own making. It would not exist without you. Now you get to watch it grow and develop. 

It is best to learn from experienced grafters, but, you can also learn how to graft from books like The Holistic Orchard and from videos on YouTube. There is something beautiful about creating your own tree. Joining your life with another life and embarking on a journey together. You will quickly see that the tree gives far more than it takes. Gratitude will wash over you as you connect with this mysterious leafy being. As much as you give, the tree will return a hundredfold. 

The very air you breathe comes from the tree. Your breath is their breath, and their breath is your breath. They are true friends that accept you just as you are. No questions asked. They are witnesses to your life, to kids growing up. When I sit still beneath the trees that we planted ten years ago, when my kids embodied the innocence of youth, I can hear their young voices emanating from the leaves as they rustle in the wind—memories of place carried forward by a gracious canopy. 

Apple trees in flower shading our driveway

As you and the tree age together, you will witness each other's wounds. A broken limb, and the vicissitudes of life, are all in plain sight. Over the years you will become intimate companions. The tree will always greet you with a warm green embrace and stories carried on the wind. The tender green new growth of spring will nurture tenderness within you. Heartwood and our hearts become one, connected through millions of years of evolution. As the tree grows, it develops more heartwood and a big-hearted tree will draw love out of you. After all, we are from the same source and on the same journey.  

Pruned Oak

Oh, how they’ve cut you, tree,

How strange and unnatural you look!

How you suffered, 100 times over,

Leaving nothing but stubborn will!

I am like you: even in this chopped up

And tortured life I did not break,

Daily, I raise my brow, a new,

Through cruelties, suffered, toward the light.

Everything soft and tender in me

The world has scorned and mocked to death

But my core is indestructible,

I am satisfied, I am reconciled,

I patiently put forth new leaves

From boughs that have cracked a hundred times,

And in spite of all sorrow, I still remain

In love with this crazy mixed-up world

Herman Hesse