Category: flora

Acer saccharinum

robin on her nest during a thunderstorm
We had a severe thunderstorm in Charlottesville last Thursday. It snapped power poles, uprooted trees.
The robin made this nest in a 120 year old silver maple. The dread silver maple.
Outlawed by municipalities around the country. Experts say it is a weak wooded, weedy, infrastructure trashing tree.
Sure enough, this tree lost limbs, is that weak wooded or smart?
Instead of hanging onto all its limbs and blowing over in one beautiful piece,
it dropped a few limbs and lived.
Sister robin protecting those youngsters. Mommas all right.

thunderstorm

sycamore leaning with the wind
We had a storm yesterday afternoon, cold air falling six miles down out of a cumulonimbus, making for a straight line Dorothy Gale experience. Busted many trees. These trees lean with the wind.
ht ferron, night
here in the hinterland we run our utilities in the air. It is the cheapest way. Akin to keeping our inventory of used motor parts in the front yard. After a wind, some trees fall on electric lines. The solution? Cut down the trees? We are cheap. If we could run the sewer lines in the air we would...

utilities

Blessed darkness. Night at night. Nary a streetlight in my part of town. Power lines down. The rise in the distance, Monticello. View from Sunrise Trailer Park.

Liriodendron tulipifera

November 2006, west lawn, Monticello
Tulip trees on the west side of Monticello.
leigh trigg and Th. Jefferson's tulip tree
This is an old tree. There is evidence it was planted April 16, 1807. I have five tulip trees to plant this weekend. This tree is 22 feet in circumference, the trees I am planting are 3/4 of an inch in circumference.
This tree affected many lives. One was my neighbor Mike Van Yahres grandfather’s. (Visit Monticello’s podcast section and search poplar for that story)
The tree was removed. Profound health issues. I am pleased that the grounds people are leaving the stump in place for awhile. It is a memorial.

See Patterson Clark’s excellent article in the Washington Post about tulip trees.