How to be a tree hugger

By Peter Butler Redstone Review

LYONS – The phrase “tree hugger” goes back to 1730, describing historical protectors of cherished local trees in India.

In reality there were probably humans getting close to trees going back to the dawn of hominids. Maybe Erk, the Neanderthal, hugged his favorite tree in appreciation for giving him refuge from some dangerous dire wolves.

I wear my dendrological embracing tendencies with pride. When you get up close to a ponderosa you can marvel at all the detail in the bark. Delicate flakes of gray and pink and orange. And the smell. Stuff your nose deep into the wrinkles and inhale that intoxicating vanilla. Because of some trouble in Madagascar, vanilla is expensive at present, but the ponderosa vanilla is free. Free to tree huggers.

Wherever I lived I always checked out the trees. and when I got my own place I started planting them. When you go to the tree emporium it is common to buy a sixfooter, with its roots in a giant canvaswrapped ball, but I like to start small to give them the best chance. At Stonebridge Farm we spend a lot of time hand-weeding vegetable beds. A gang of us kneel and clean a bed of, say, onions or carrots. We know all the culprits: purslane, pig weed and lamb’s quarters. They all have to go.

But occasionally we find a little plant with pinnate leaves that looks like a legume, three inches high.

I pause my weeding and carefully excavate the baby black locust and put in a temporary pot ready to take home. Small trees are different from flowering plants. If you want to give a friend one of your marigolds you can safely scoop enough root in a generous handful of soil. But a six-inch tall baby tree has a root that goes down about 16 inches and it is almost impossible to extract without killing it. So I always look for tiny ones where the roots are just five or six inches long. You can get most of them without damage. They overwinter in the house and then, in the spring, I plant them in the arboretum. My pride and joy is a black locust from about six years ago, now nine feet tall.

A few years ago mountain pine beetle was rampaging through Rocky Mountain National Park and sneaking down here occasionally too. A million trees died. A tree Jedi could feel the darkness in the tree force. So I thought it might be a good idea to diversify the tree population on our piece of land. But the stuff masquerading as our soil is barely crushed granite about four inches deep with very little humus. So if the planting is destined to be more than a suicide pact plenty of TLC is needed. TLC and patience.

There is a book by Brad Lancaster titled Rainwater Harvesting For Drylands. He lives in Tucson but his principles are well suited to the Front Range. He suggests that planting a tree is more about optimizing