Bark

This article in the New York Times, http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/travel/20weekend.html?8dpc mentioned looking for winter interest in the garden by inspecting tree bark. Always on the lookout for winter interest here at Faire Garden, the camera and I went out to look for some of that intruguing bark. First shown is the trunk of one of the hemlocks, tsuga canadensis, that form a privacy screen along the top of our hill. Planted eleven years ago, these have nicely provided a curtain of green. I am watching for the insect, wooly adelgid, that has damaged so many of the native hemlocks in the forests. Not wanting to jinx it,… no comment.

Pyracantha, unknown cultivar, has an almost grid like look to its bark. There is a row of these tree/shrubs along the east side of the top of the hill, behind the shed, planted at the same time as the hemlocks. I guess it should be mentioned here that they were all planted by the semi adult children at that time. They also form a privacy screen with the bonus of white fuzzy flowers in spring and orangey red berries in fall. The birds love the thorny protection of the dense branching.

But this grid like look does not bode well for this pyracantha. Yellow bellied sap suckers, a woodpecker relative, hang around our area and this looks like the kind of damage they can do. It is really low to the ground, less than one foot, which seems unusual for them. In spite of whatever has happened to this tree, the birds are so attractive, a photo capturing them in action would surely make it to this site. But what can be done for this tree? Any ideas? Wrapping of some kind?

With a little more confidence about how to proceed, wax from a lit candle was dripped onto the fresh wound left from the removal of a large branch on the Yoshino flowering cherry, prunus x yedoensis, out front. It has been four years since the cut was made, it was a big limb growing too low out into the street. Happily the wax kept the insects and water out but allowed the tree to form the proper scab.

Another embattled tree, this time a Loblolly pine, pinus taeda, part of the woods that forms the property border near the street. In 2000, when most of the pine stands were lost to the southern pine beetle, we were watching this oozing area on the trunk of the largest of these trees. Somehow it is still living and the sap has dried. We still keep an eye on all the trees, however.

The same tree’s better side, mz. photographer, if you don’t mind. Why are you showing my imperfections?

Striations on the silver maple, the only other large tree on the property besides the pines.

What started out as an oak seedling mixed among the pines has now grown, although tall and skinny, to be higher than the pines themselves, at least thirty feet. If the day ever comes that the pines must come down, this is the hope for the future over there.

Really barkless, not interesting bark, this stump planter offers lots of nooks and crannies that create shadow art.

Probably what most people think about when the term interesting bark is mentioned, the row of riverbirches along the wooden fence near the house has entered its peeling stage.

For bringing the outside in, the bathrooms were wallpapered in this birch bark pattern. Interestingly, the images are photographs of real bark, and colored in soft greens and browns. The wallpaper in one of the bathrooms was removed this last year and the walls were painted a lovely robin’s egg blue. It was such a messy arduous task that the wallpaper seemed not needing replacement just yet in the guest bath.

From the same collection, this wallpaper border was applied to suggest a real birch log railing on the wall in the master bedroom. The lighter upper and dark paint below the limb make for a woodsy night’s sleep.

Dreaming of bark,

Frances

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