In a burst of ambition I planted 3 more trees today, one Pinus edulis (a kind of pinyon pine) and two Pinus eldarica (Afghan pine). Because we are heading into the third year of drought, and because in California a decade of drought is actually quite normal, I decided to plant some trees that are happy with lower rainfall. The douglas oaks I planted last year won't mind either it either. Once these trees are established I can save my water for the roses. In long droughts we will be limited in our ability to water plants, and I have my priorities.

Rosefolly

Ingrid

Ingrid, I think we were posting at the same time, so I slipped back into the post to add a note to you as well. Everyone is worried about the possibility of long term decreased rainfall, those of us who are gardeners especially so. I've been thinking a lot about making my garden more resilient to lower rainfall. Even California's normal variation is extreme enough to be tough on plants. If the situation gets no worse, I still will not have wasted my efforts.

Mendocino Rose, I keep thinking about planting Pinus sabiana (digger pine) but I read somewhere about it being especially flammable, and that scared me off. Probably I'm being silly. All pines are flammable, and there are a number on the property, including a huge Italian stone pine near the house.

I'm also considering a second pinyon pine, because they won't produce pine nuts unless there are two. And I am thinking of adding a Juniperus californica, partly because they grow in association with the native pines, and partly because they are so handsome.

I'm thinking about repeating the drive that I made with my youngest sister year or two ago up Mount Hamilton on route 130 through the Diablo Range then down into San Jose. It is probably the most gorgeous drive I've done in years, ecosystems changing with the change in elevation. It felt like a drive into California's past. Another sister is coming to visit (I have a number of sisters), and she wants to see, too. Anyway, at a certain elevation the mountainside is covered with these pines. I understood another of their names when I saw them, ghost pines. They look ghostly and gray, as though they would disappear into the mist (only there is no mist because it is very dry). They were native here, too, once upon a time.

Maybe I will plant one.

Rosefolly

I picked up some Jeffrey(?) cones from our hotel parking lot when we visited the mountains, hope those seeds will sprout too

I added a blue spruce, a hawthorne, several varieties of cryptomeria, and a river birch.

We have some trees well past the sapling stage down in the woodland corridor, but nothing grand, either there or on the rest of the property. Perhaps one day the farm will have forest giants. But not in my lifetime. To DH and me will go the honor of starting a lot of oak trees, or so I hope, and then not cutting them down. Our cedar of Lebanon, that majestic, inconvenient tree, which if all goes well will one day eat up much of the bottom of the sunny garden, is now definitely taller than me. It was about my height when we got it, I think about six years ago, and is now roughly a foot taller than I am. Every year it puts on two to three inches of new growth. It doesn't sound like much--it isn't much--but the tree is solid as the rock of Gibralter, and there's a certain pleasure in watching its progress. It's all very slow, but in my hopeful moods I think that we are changing the face of the couple of acres of garden we labor so over.

Melissa

As for us, we are thinking that a copse of good walnuts (including the hickories) might pay for a college education for our granddaughter's grandchild. It's well above £3000, standing timber price, at the moment, for an 80 year old walnut).

Although it is all about the timber for the woodworkers in the family, it is still the green plants and habitats driving me onwards.

In the language of flowers oak signifies hospitality. I planted one (more accurately our oldest son planted one) shortly after we moved into this house which was many years ago but as the ages of oaks are counted, it is still a baby.

Cath

If I thought that English oaks could get by on a low water, dry summer regimen I would plant one here, probably not the fastigate form. There is one thriving at Vintage, but they get a lot more rain than we do. I live 100 miles south of there and the amount of rainfall is quite different, though the summer dry/winter rain pattern is the same.

Rosefolly

It figures that many here are tree lovers. Tree lovers have good hearts, too.

Sherry

The great Italian cypress which was planted in 1963 by my parents is looking fine now. A great big sundial now. I can tell the hour by where the shadow falls across the street. The other large trees are a Jacaranda which has just finished blooming and a Golden Ash both planted in 1963. The leaves have not turned golden on the Ash yet. I love when those leaves turn yellow and begin to flutter down in the cool breeze to the music of my windchime. I feel very special about it. There was one day when a group of butterflies passed through when the leaves were falling like that and I was so moved by the beauty of it that I started to cry. Also there was a time when I saw a white egret fly through a shaft of sunlight in the silence of Muir Woods and I felt like I was in the presence of God in a natural cathedral. These profound moments have all happened by trees or in a forest. Other beautiful forests I have been especially touched by were Yosemite National Park, Smoky Mtns. National Park and Shenandoah National Park as I mentioned earlier. I am still wanting to go to Yellowstone National Park.

Whoever gives trees a place is giving this experience to someone else. I always feel grateful for the generous gift of trees.

There is a beautiful song about a tree by Handel