For those like myself that are towards the twilights of life, planting trees is part of the stewardship that implies caring for the patch that each of us have been so blessed to have! They beautify the landscape, or modify improving it as in my case.. The original landscape and environment was one almost of a treeless dry scrub half wild, full of thorny wild hip rose( Rosa eglanteria) that was introduced as hedge plant by the original settlers that came over from southern Chile, perhaps 120 years ago. The invasive hip rose became an impenetrable thorny bramble and we painstakingly had to clear it all with brushcutters.
So fully grown trees mean so much to us here as well! We need desperately trees as windbrakes . I have chosen Leyland's cypress, over faster growing poplars ,because they are not so slow growers, slender, very elegant and upright, almost columnar, and they can be clipped as a tall evergreen hedge.I have sown, this spring from my own seed, stratified them in the frig and about 100 emerged! I keep sowing tree seeds, although I doubt that in spite of owning a 6 acre little farm, there will be place for everyone of them. This year I successfully sowed also Arborvitae and Westermann's Chamecyparis.
Although trees are important and define the structure of a property, like everything else, they mature and sometimes require being cut down. Even a structural change that implies a tree that is no longer there, it opens up an oportunity for something new. Also new room for sun loving plants that had been slowly been pushed away by the ever enlarging shade area of a full grown tree.
Gardening is for me not so much a place where I grow what I have or want, but rather a place where my prayers in gratitude become intimately true. I feel particularly blessed when something happens right ( in view of so much that can and usually does go wrong) . I'm always amazed at our Lord's mercy! Trees come and go, so do we, ...perhaps one leaves for those who follow a fleeting reminder of having toiled to leave a better place than that we found when just started, regardless the size or growth stage of trees. Others will pick up and hopefully do a better job than myself and... continue praying....
