Trees: The Gift of Love

As my husband and I have discovered in the last thirty years, it's not necessary to wait for Arbor Day in April to think about trees or plan for them. Our yard in western MA is our own little bit of Heaven on Earth, a fusion of memory and friendship gardens. Most trees and shrubs were planted to remember various celebrations, or were gifts, or have been grown from cuttings and seeds exchanged with friends and members of my garden club. Some of the more unusual ones were acquired through groups like The Friends of the Arnold Arboretum or grown from seeds located through seed exchanges of The American Horticultural Society or The Royal Horticultural Society.

One of the first plantings visitors to our yard pass through is a mixed shrub border, planted in 1969, just a year after we moved onto the property. It contributes durable four-season color and variety to the front of the yard as well as a sense of seclusion from our noisy road. The hedge was put together from small, rooted cuttings of forsythia (Forsythia suspensa), weigela (Weigela florida), privet (Ligustrum vulgare), deutzia (Deutzia gracilis), flowering almond (Prunus glandulosa 'Rosa Plena'), lilacs (Syringa vulgaris), and blue hetz juniper (Juniperus chinensis 'Hetzii Glauca').

What makes this hedge so special? The rooted cuttings were the lonely rejects from a local garden club's annual plant sale. Instead of throwing these plants away, several ladies who knew we had a huge yard with few plants, brought them to us. I like to think that perhaps the ladies had decided to take on me, a young bride and new mother, as a project. The ladies are all deceased now, while the hedge, garden club and I continue to thrive, and I have a living reminder of the value of comradeship between novice and master gardener.