Ash Tree Musings, etc.

The ash tree in my front yard is changing color -- deep purple with yellow hiding underneath.

I shall miss these lovely fall colors with the decline of ash trees.

As you can see, the one in my yard is robust and healthy.  We've been treating it for about 6 years now, long before the borers were even in the area.  My arborist applauds me for this foresight, as my tree is healthier even than others that started getting treatments later.  Of course, my arborist is making a small fortune off this decision, and I find myself wondering... how long can my ash tree, and the others being treated, survive?  Will it become some sort of relic, a living fossil almost?  How much money will I end up spending on it, and will it be worth it?  In 25 years, will I look out at my yard, think of the thousands of dollars I've spent over the years, and see, in my mind's eye, the sugar maple I could have planted back in 2010 and how big it would be 30 years later?

Am I just delaying the inevitable?  Am I providing some sort of service to nature and humanity by preserving this species?  Will it ever become unnecessary to treat the trees -- will the borers run out of food, move away, and make my ash tree safe again?  Or will they adapt, find new food sources, or keep living off the baby ash-lings produced by treated trees like mine?  (Isn't that ironic, don't ya think?)

Can you tell, dear readers, that I am conflicted about my ash tree?

As for all the others... I haven't been reporting ash tree phenology this fall.  I have no idea if the ones that are losing their leaves are doing so because of borers or because of the season.  A lot of the yellow color we've been seeing is ash trees changing, though, and more recently the purple... (The green ash trees turn yellow, I think, and ours is a white ash that turns the purple color).

In other tree news, most locusts have yellowed (the color is off in this photo -- it's yellow) and are promptly losing leaflets almost as soon as they change color. 

I realize I have been remiss about writing lately, in a time of year when the world seems to change every day. I can make excuses... I have been plagues by minor injuries and illnesses, as has my car. I have been on school trips. I have been extremely busy, what with this being such an important time of year for gardening, plus all of the above.

But the truth? I just haven't felt that much like writing, or taking pictures. When it becomes a chore...

And the world really is changing. I look out my window and see the first lilacs blooming. Just about everything is leafed out... even the oaks and the ashes have leaves at this point. Crabapples and redbuds are blooming. And it is still really cold. (Last week, we had a few days of pre-summer. In fact, it hit 90 in Chicago and the upper 80s where I was in Wisconsin. But that was just a tease, and then we had a weekend that didn't top 50 for even a single minute, and was wet to boot.) At least it's sunny today.

Leaves

I suppose I have been neglectful in not mentioning that leaves are coloring and falling left and right. Maples are red and orange and, in some cases, naked. Ashes are purple and yellow. Oaks are slowly turning brown...

Naked Thursday!

Some trees are getting nekkid. Mostly ashes, lindens, crab apples, some oaks (but others still have green leaves...) The bare trees must be feeling cold and wet. It's been raining for about 8 hours and doesn't seem like it's going to stop any time soon.

My driveway and front yard are covered in ash leaves...

It's definitely getting autumnal around here. Trees are turning vibrant colors and prairies are turning browner. Above, a maple, bright red, is already shedding its leaves. Below, the ash tree in my front yard has a burgundy crown with yellow underneath. (You can tell from the photographs, it's a cloudy, dreary day...)
Snakeroot blooms in my yard. This was a little treat when I arrived home, as I had forgotten about this final flower.

In the garden, we planted garlic yesterday. Last year (harvested this summer) we grew 18 bulbs in 2 varieties, of which we saved 2 bulbs for planting this year, and have 3 bulbs left BUT we have been eating garlic from the farmers market because I wanted to save some of ours for a little while. This year (for harvest in 2010) we planted 42 cloves, in 10 varieties! It's exciting to do something for next year in among the cleaning-up and destroying... yesterday I also removed all our tomato, pepper, basil, melon, corn and bean plants (and a lot of weeds that had grown in between them to snugly to take out before). And I started the long process of flower bed tidying with the composting of the nasturtiums. So it was a long, chilly afternoon in the garden -- and several more are needed before the winter sets in!

Back in IL

Where to start? I don't even know... I'll guess I'll begin with the present. Back in Illinois, there was a hard frost this morning. Perhaps not the first, but small bodies of standing water (puddles, the water in our grill, etc.) are frozen solid; the morning glories and nasturtium are down for the count. The ash tree in the front yard is turning burgundy and losing its leaves. My typing is full of typos because my fingers are quite cold.

We have had quite a week; I wish I could show the hundreds of photos I took... but I'll have to cut it short so I don't risk losing readers to boredom at my long-windedness...

Life is Good

Bur Oaks Leaf Out

I wouldn't go so far as to say today was a perfect day.  After all, we cleaned the house and went to school.  But I will venture to say there were perfect moments.  Picture it...  Today was the first day of the year when it was warm enough for me to sit outside and read without a coat that I didn't have to be at work.  And so I donned a tank top... yeah, I know.  I would have better been alive before the discovery of skin cancer.  Or worse, because at least I wear sunscreen, knowing the danger.  I don't care so much about looking tan, I just really love the feel of sun.  Anyhow.  I stretched out on a lawn chair with a book about food, while next to me some of my future food -- seedlings that have been living too much of their lives under a grow light -- also basks in the sunlight.  

 

The seedlings really needed it, too.  I have been raising wimpy plants, unable to stand up to wind and wilty in the sun.  Normally I have them out more by now, but it's been chilly, it seems.But today is sunny with only a slight breeze and about 70.  So today they and I enjoyed the sun.  

Just about everything that's not fully green has a haze around it as new leaves finally emerge...  this doesn't seem like a warm early spring day when the sticks are all bare and the grass is still yellow.  And everyone mowed yesterday, so it's totally quiet of human noises.  Birds sing all around, some with songs I recognize... robins, a far-off red-winged blackbird.  Goldfinches dip by and LBBs are everywhere chipping and chirping and warbling.  Cutting through everything, the chickadee's two-note song, almost sad, alerts me to their presence in the yard.  This is the same call that I imitate to call students in from quiet field activities; perhaps he is calling me in?

I breathe in.  The air smells fresh and clean, mixed with sunscreen and the faint remains of last night's fire.  It smells like summer, although it is only the beginning of May.  And, although I have school tomorrow, I feel relaxed.  The house is clean, we are pretty caught up on the yard work, amazingly, for the moment.  Well, as caught up as you can ever be...

 

And then, the moment that already seems pretty darn good gets way better.  A huge green darner circles around the yard, flying close not once, but several times.  Odonates, dragonflies and their daintier sisters the damselflies, are my favorite animal when I have to identify one.  (Although really, my favorite animal is whichever one I see right now, a constantly changing menagerie as I contemplate the adaptations of the things that are surviving where I am.)  I love their jewel tones -- vibrant blues and emerald greens, oranges, reds, yellows.  I love their shimmery delicate wings and their bulging, multi-faceted eyes.  I love that they're tough, predators, survivors for 250 million years or so.  I love that they have a secret life, that the swooping, soaring insect that everyone recognizes, and which is the object of art around the world... that's just the last, flamboyant bit of a life spent mostly under water.  Depending on the species, they may swim as nymphs for 5 years before spending a short summer in the air.  I don't particularly love their violent mating rituals, but I am fascinated by them and respectful of them as the result of an evolution of behaviors that clearly works.  

 

I have always had these visitors to my yard, usually several species of dragon- and damselflies each summer.  I am grateful for their presence although we live several blocks from the nearest substantial body of water (I'm pretty sure the little pool where my sump pump releases water, though it is pretty deep right now and supports some marsh marigolds, isn't enough for dragonfly eggs).  

 

It's not just the dragonflies -- the insect world is definitely waking up.  Bumble bees fumble around the yard, and I've seen quite a few of the small native bees which I believe live in small holes.  I put up a home for them and I think they like it because I've had them around the last couple of summers.  Annoyingly, box elder bugs have been everywhere for the last few days and wasps are back at their old games of building nests on the side of my house.  I also saw a small white and a small yellow butterfly today -- those sulphurs and whites -- I probably couldn't ID them if I had a field guide and a pinned specimen.  But it's good to see them in my garden.

Yesterday I also saw a monarch!  Granted, this was a little bit to the south, but they're probably here, too.  I mean, it would be awfully lucky if I drove 30 miles to the south on the exact day of the first monarch there, and actually managed to see it, too!  But even if I did, they'll be here shortly.  

 

Other notables:  oaks leaf out, ash leafs out, (a lot of things leaf out...), first flowers on golden Alexander, first flowers on Jacob's ladder, Jack-in-the-pulpit has emerged and is about 4 inches tall, daffodils are kicking the bucket, potatoes have broken through soil in the garden, creeping Charlie is taking over the world.