Eight trees behind our house turn red and gold.
Their litter, raked and gathered into piles
We mow into confetti. Leaves gone old–
A feast for worms to make poor soil fertile.
Dense mesh of tangled branches marks short days,
Snow-buried roots beneath encrusting ice.
The flicker, flutter flight of paired blue jays
Precede their raucous song that must suffice.
First blush of warmth, twigs shiver in their haste
To blossom tufts and dangles of chartreuse.
Pollen rides on the breeze; no nectar waste.
But red squirrels seek the seeds that they produce.
Swaying maple and oak boughs. But alas,
Their sunlight-hungry leaves kill off the grass.
Earth Day Thoughts
After three years in our “new” home, I’m forced to reconcile the effect that eight to ten trees have on any attempt to maintain a lawn, i.e. they don’t let you.
I’m not a fan of lawns, as a rule, but grass (or any blessed ground cover) is preferable to the mud slop you end up with when you have active dogs who want to make use of the fenced-in yard. At speed. Rain or shine.
I like having trees. They provide privacy. They provide a tangible marker of the seasons (the maples are starting to bud now). They provide more biodiversity than a golf-course manicured patch of thirsty Kentucky Bluegrass. But when it comes to plant competition, everything strives for the sun. And even when I’m at my worst for yard maintenance, I promise you, grass can only get to about knee height at best. The bushes and shrubs seem to survive alright.
So this weekend, a friend visited and we used her telescopic branch trimmer to thin the canopy and excise dead boughs. We clipped and sawed and stacked until it rained. We had lukewarm tea on the deck in our coats and gloves. On her way out, we stopped to trim the tree in the front yard.
I may have gotten a bit hack-happy.
In the coming weeks, I will scatter red clover and shade-tolerant grass seeds, over and over, in the hope that something catches this year. I hope to let the front lawn overgrow with dandelions for as long as possible before someone else mows it out of annoyance.
And then hope that after the yellow flower heads are chopped off by mower blades, the clover in the front will flower before they too are trimmed into submission.
And I’ll hope that pollinators come anyway because of the shrubs.
And I hope. I hope. I hope.
Happy Earth Day! 🌎