Come walk with me in the peak Autumn beauty of the Northwoods. To say that I love this time of year is an understatement. Most everyone can appreciate the colorful falling leaves---it reveals the 'true self' of a tree when its leaves are no longer producing chlorophyll. Their true colors are revealed, and there is something simple … [Read More...]
Healing Wounds
Inside every cell in our bodies is an amazing, complex system of DNA repair that maintains the integrity of our genes. Our cellular DNA is subject to attack by reactive oxygen radicals produced by normal cellular processes (why we want to have antioxidants in our diets) and by environmental agents including chemical toxins and radiation. There are 130 known human DNA repair genes whose proteins identify the damage, excise or cut out the damaged area, replicate a new strand using the information in the ‘good’ strand, then bind it all together again. This process is happening in every cell in our bodies every day of our lives! On a somewhat larger scale, we also have an intricate system of wound healing that includes vasoconstriction and blood clotting if bleeding occurs and an influx of inflammatory cells to cleanse the wound, clean up debris of damaged tissue, and promote the growth of new blood vessels, endothelial cells, muscle tissue, and collagen. Immune cells, growth factors, cytokines, and many others are all activated when an injury or wound occurs.
Plants also have DNA and wound repair systems. As infrequently as we think about our own wound repair, we think even less of the trees and other plants around us. A number of trees in our yard and woods have been damaged by various things. Trauma on the trunk of this young birch was probably from sun scald. It occurs on the south or southwest side of the tree in the winter when the bark freezes following warming of the trunk by the sun. But this is not a recent injury–notice how the new tissue is rolling in and over the dead wood of the wound.
Another late winter wound is frost crack when the water in the phloem and xylem expand and contract at different rates. This creates a sudden, long vertical injury accompanied by a loud shot sound.
A common wound in young trees is when a person mows or weed eats too closely to the tree, damaging the bark. Considerable trauma occurs when tree stakes are not removed after a reasonable time. This maple tree was staked with a chain to prevent it from leaning. By the time we bought our place, the tree was growing around the chain. The healing process continues since we removed the restriction.
Another injury of neglect is when something is tied around a tree and not removed. This pine tree had a clothesline tied around it, causing a wound around the whole tree.
One of the previous owners of our place–many years ago–used the oak trees on the wooded hillside as fence posts for his barbed wire fence and didn’t remove the wire from the trees. More than half a dozen oaks have barbed wire sticking out through the bark. Many have scars where the barbed wire is, but it is amazing how much healing has occurred, how the tree has integrated the wire into itself and has kept on growing.
Routine care and maintenance of trees also causes injury. Whenever we prune a branch from a tree, we create a wound.
Immediately, the cellular repair mechanisms get to work to begin the process of sealing the wound with callus layers.
Mother Nature and her harsh winters and changing conditions can cause damage to trees. Neglect and abuse by clueless caretakers can create and perpetuate wounds. Even the intentional, respectful care by a tree lover can create an injury. It takes years for a tree to heal a wound, leaving it vulnerable to disease and insect damage, but from the DNA level up, the tree is always working to repair itself. The birch tree exemplifies the healing and growth process: how wounds are healed, how the old is sloughed away, and how the pristine cells create the new and improved tree.
We are all wounded. Life can be traumatic–Mother Nature can assault us with floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes that take away our homes and our feelings of safety. Ignorant people can wound us with words, actions, inactions, and physical harm. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time can impart lasting impairment. Institutions, cultural hierarchies, biases, and dogmatic thinking can leave a trail of trauma in their wake with no accountability. Loss of a loved one by death or abandonment wrenches the heart and leaves a permanent scar. Even unintentional damage happens in the most intentionally loving families–a move to a new place, a career change, or a divorce.
The good news is we are built to heal! Our physiology–beginning with our DNA–has complex systems in place to get rid of the bad and restore homeostasis or balance. Our smart body is programmed to maintain its integrity. Grief is the bitter balm that begins the healing process of our minds and spirits. It assesses the damage, stops the bleeding, cleans up the debris of the trauma, and rallies the troops to begin the rebuilding. Healing our wounds takes time, often years, and includes constant alterations or remodeling of our cells or our thoughts. Eventually we integrate the pain and the loss into our daily self. We carry it around with us. We are not ashamed of our scar. We are restored, but to a new level–one that is burnished by fire and polished with Love–and we keep on growing.
Welcome to the Sugar Shack
With a greeting of “Welcome to the Sugar Shack,” an azure blue sky with an eagle circling overhead, people in brightly colored hats, boots, and fleeces, and acres and acres of woods, I knew we were in for a great afternoon!
The monks of Saint John’s Abbey have been making maple syrup for over sixty years. After 2500 acres of land were designated a natural arboretum, the first Saint John’s Maple Syrup Festival was held in 2001. But before you can have syrup, you have to collect the sap! We joined a hundred other volunteers of all ages for ‘tapping day’ on Sunday. After a prayer and a song to bless the workers on their way, we headed to the woods. The ‘sugarbush’ is the stand of sugar maple trees used to collect sap for the maple syrup process.
In our group of ten, including four eager children, we learned how to tap a tree. We drilled a two-inch deep hole at hip height, making sure not to drill within four inches of an old tap hole.
A metal ‘spile’ was tapped into the hole with a hammer.
We hung a bucket on the spile, put a lid on it, and the tree does the rest!
During winter dormancy, the starch made by photosynthesis the previous year is stored in the roots and trunk of the tree. When temperatures rise above freezing during the day and fall below freezing during the night, it creates a change in pressure that forces the sap to move up the tree. The sap is approximately 98% water and 2% sucrose and supplies nutrients for the tree’s new buds.
Other maple tree species (box elder) and other trees (birch) can be tapped for sap, but the sugar maple is the most productive using 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. The average maple tree will produce 9 to 13 gallons of sap each season.
We tapped trees for two hours in ‘The Hollow,’ one of eleven areas of trees in the sugarbush.
Then we headed back to the Sugar Shack for cookies and hot chocolate!
Inside the Sugar Shack is a massive wood-burning evaporator that is used to boil the sap down to syrup.
The shed beside the Sugar Shack is filled to the top with stacks and stacks of wood. It takes one cord of wood to make twenty gallons of syrup.
Two Maple Syrup Festivals, one at the end of the month and one in April, will be the culmination of many hours of hard work for the monks and their helpers–wood cutting and hauling, gathering supplies for tapping, checking buckets and hauling sap back to the Sugar Shack, and the evaporation process. The real prize at the end of all that hard work will be the gallons of sweet maple syrup!
Isn’t it wonderful to have the blessing of a prayer, a song, or an eagle flying overhead as we venture out to work? It’s important to know the history and hard work that goes into making simple, delicious food for our tables and to appreciate all the things in our lives that are provided by Nature. May we all know the sweetness and flavor of a life well-lived!
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
You know how things can be going along rather smoothly with blue skies and sunshine, then all of a sudden, you find yourself between a rock and a hard place?
Quarry Park, with all its bedrock and spoils piles, exhibited a portfolio of examples of living creation dealing with an unyielding environment. But back to the smooth sailing for a moment….This aspen grove looks idyllic at the marshy end of one of the quarries, but not far below the snow and thin layer of soil is a deep layer of rock. The aspens grow in large clonal colonies derived from a single seedling. The extensive root system allows them to survive forest fires and thrive when growing over and between granite.
What is the story of this bent-over oak tree? How could such a large tree be bent at a ninety degree angle? Squirrel tracks in the snow showed how it was now used as a highway to the next tree.
It wasn’t until I was home and looking through photos that I noticed the huge iron staple below the wounded tree. Since it was adjacent to the quarry, perhaps the quarriers somehow used the tree and iron staple to hoist the blocks of rocks from the hole.
Two interesting saplings along the trail demonstrated that it wasn’t just rocks or iron that could put a tree in a hard place. This young, flexible tree was used for a deer rub. Bucks of all ages will rub the velvet off their antlers in late summer; then during the fall rutting season, the more mature bucks rub to attract does and warn away other bucks. The rub is a visual warning as well as an olfactory one, as the buck rubs the scent gland on his forehead against the exposed wood.
I didn’t look closely enough to tell if this buckthorn sapling was being strangled by its own or another’s branch, though the reddish twig suggests it is from another.
The last quarry on our hike was the only one with ice falls. Spring water flowed and froze on either side of the large plateau of granite where, miraculously, a sizable cedar tree was growing!
The snow-capped ice draped over the granite, and tiny trees pushed their way through the crevices of the rock face.
A green patch of moss with a head of white snow and a beard of ice nestled itself on a granite ledge.
The twigs of a tree were captured by the ice fall while its roots were wedged between rocks. Another tree caught between a rock and a hard place.
All of us will find ourselves in a very difficult situation at some time in our lives. It may be a physical challenge or a moral dilemma that offers two equally difficult or seemingly unacceptable choices. Sometimes we get ourselves into a tight spot when a person or situation looks like one thing but below the surface is really something else. Other circumstances or people can tear away at our defenses for their own purposes or wrap themselves around us so tightly that we can’t grow and be our best. At those times, we need to ask ourselves, “What’s my story? How did I get myself into this condition? And more importantly, how do I get myself out?” We need to connect to our colony of family and friends, the ones who sustain us through tough times with roots reaching with love and encouragement. It is possible to stand tall and prosper in spite of hardship, and like the ice that holds the twigs hostage, this too shall pass.
Mount Tom
Temperatures slipped above freezing on Saturday, adding to my dismay that we were smack-dab in the middle of winter and experiencing ‘tropic’ air and melting snow. So on a positive spin to my dismay, we decided to go hiking (sans snowshoes) at the nearby Sibley State Park. The ranger recommended the Mount Tom trail, so after parking at the trail center, we were off to conquer Tom.
The trail was snow-covered and slick in places, and as I carefully traipsed up the hill, all I could think about was ‘what if I fall on Aaron’s camera?’ So Chris stepped into the woods and fashioned two walking sticks for me which made the traversing so much easier–and faster!
Dark, peeling bark of three huge wild grapevines climbing a tree caught my attention. They twined their way into a sculpture fit for any gallery.
The dead lower branches of a red cedar tree and the bright white fungus lining the grooves of an oak tree added to the gallery of Mount Tom.
A decaying log displayed a palette of earthy clay and moss colors, almost bright in the white and gray landscape.
The media of choice for the oaks were fungi and moss.
The native Ironwood trees still held on to their rust-colored leaves. This understory tree, also called Hop-hornbeam, is tolerant of shade, slow growing, has hop-like, papery seedpods and tough, hard-to-saw wood.
A stand of young ironwood trees displayed their catkin flowers, hinting at the spring to come.
An hour and a half into our hike, after climbing up and down hills, we began to wonder if we should just turn around. Where is this Mount Tom? And what kind of name was Mount Tom, anyway? This is Minnesota! Our map of hiking and snowmobile trails was confusing, so we didn’t really know if we were on the right track. But I was determined to get to Mount Tom–after all those hills, I knew we had to be close, and I wanted to get a picture! Finally we got to the top of a ridge where the sun had burned away the snow from a patch of prairie grass–this must be Mount Tom!
Down the hill we found a parking lot and outhouse, evidence that we had reached our destination! But then we saw a granite structure with a viewing platform up on the next hill. As we walked towards it, we saw a sign that said ‘Mount Tom!’ Ok. And from the signage we read, “Mount Tom is the highest point in Sibley State Park and one of the highest landmarks in the area. Sibley State Park was established in 1919, in part to protect Mount Tom and the area’s glacially formed hills.”
“For centuries people have used Mount Tom for spiritual, inspirational, and recreational purposes.”
“The origin of the name Mount Tom is unknown.”
Our quest to find Mount Tom on the trails through the oak, cedar, and ironwood trees and up and down hills was finally realized! And here we were standing on holy ground! How many thousands of people had made this trek before us?
As we journey, oftentimes we don’t know where we are, our self-constructed maps become confusing, and we wonder if we should turn around and go back. But Something keeps us going. We carefully assemble ways to make the going easier, and we enjoy and appreciate the sights and moments before us. And just when we think we’ve reached our destination, there is Something More. And we find ourselves standing on Holy Ground.
Gimme Shelter*
I lived in a barn for three summers of my life while in college. It was a red, wood-sided barn with a hayloft and a lean-to on either side. The half-moon cement stoop had my name etched into it and a willowy caricature of a horse by the awesome Amy Olsen–artist, cook, wrangler, and bunk house mate. It had an upgraded floor of particle board, one wall of wood paneling, a couple of square wood-framed windows, and two rows of bunk beds. My lean-to was not rodent free–though I did check my mattress to make sure there wasn’t a round hole chewed through the fabric–but it was a good place to live, nonetheless. We were safe from the coyotes that howled in the night, above the rattlesnakes that crawled on the ground, dry from the rain that tapped on the tin roof, and close to the South Dakota prairie that we loved.
My children also worked at church camps with ‘rustic’ housing. Two of the them lived for three summers (or more) in a straight-sided canvas wall tent on a wooden platform near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and the other in a cabin under towering pines and oaks on a hill overlooking Star Lake. Immersed in Nature, sheltered by Nature, inspired by Nature.
Have you ever wondered where all of Nature’s creatures find shelter, especially in winter?
Fallen trees provide shelter to many little critters–thick walls of wood insulation, grubs and insect larvae to eat, moss to munch on and use for nesting, and protection from the wind and snow. A weasel or mink may live in the cavity of a fallen log.
Dead trees that are still standing make excellent homes for woodpeckers and other birds.
This old oak tree has a hobbit-house opening at the base. Who lives here?
Leaves lined the opening of the shelter.
Inside the oak house, there was shredded wood for nesting material, but I’m still not sure who lives here.
Other animals make their dens under rocks. I know the fox who travels through our yard has a den somewhere on the steep hill under a large granite rock.
Rabbits like to take shelter under brush piles. When we have more snow, the brush piles turn into huge igloos, making a cozy place for a rabbit family.
We have a critter who lives under our garden shed. Our attempt to close his entry with chunks of granite didn’t deter him–he now just has a granite entryway!
Trees and rocks–home to so many creatures!
Look around your house–how many trees and rocks went into making your home a comfortable place for you and your family to live? Safe shelter is a basic need for all of us–humans and animals alike. Having a place to live that is warm, dry, and safe is essential in order to live well the rest of one’s life. It’s fairly easy to live in a barn or a tent in the summer, but winter provides additional challenges. I’m grateful for the trees and rocks that make up our home, for the warmth that earth’s natural gas provides, and for the connection to and inspiration from Nature.
*The Rolling Stones
This is What November Looks Like
I subscribe to a monthly magazine marketed ‘for women of style & substance,’ and while I would never claim to have the least bit of style, I would like to think my substance makes up for that! One section in the magazine has a beautiful photo of a real woman (as opposed to a model woman) and is titled, “This is What 50 Looks Like” or 62 or 45 or whatever age that particular woman of style and substance happens to be. It tells a little about her in soundbites like ‘On letting her hair go gray’ or ‘On keeping things simple.’ I like that page because the women look real–they may have wrinkles, imperfections, gray hair, or whatever, and it doesn’t matter. They look beautiful, healthy, and radiant and inspire by what they are doing to make a difference in the world.
So on this gray November day when most of the color is gone from Mother Nature’s palette, I want to show you that this is what November looks like in Central Minnesota.
ON SHOWING HER COLOR IN A GRAY LANDSCAPE
“The sumac seed heads are a colorful and enduring presence through late fall and all of winter, looking especially nice against the white of snow.”
“The tiny blue berries of the Eastern Red Cedar are a delicate decoration on the large evergreen tree until the birds eat them. The cedar also provides excellent shelter and nesting space for many birds and small mammals.”
ON BEING THE INSPIRATION FOR THE MOSSY OAK EMPIRE
“It’s an honor, of course.”
ON BEING GREEN
“We were green before going green was cool.”
ON BEING CHOSEN AS THE BEST TREE IN THE SILHOUETTE CATEGORY
“My oaks are winners in multiple ways! They provide food and shelter for many birds and animals. They are so much more than a beautiful structure!”
ON MINNESOTA’S TEN THOUSAND LAKES
“The lakes and rivers of Minnesota are one of the state’s greatest resources. They provide recreation and support tens of thousands of businesses. They are also home to a multitude of creatures.”
ON WINTER INTEREST
“Not only is the big, bold Joe Pye Weed great to keep for winter interest, so are perennial grasses and flowers with interesting seed heads, like the Ligularia. Of course, in Minnesota, they also have to be tall in order to be seen above the snow.”
ON DISPLAYING HER SCULPTURES
“This Gray Dogwood is a free form piece with strong yet flexible lines and added interest from scarlet flower stems and curly grapevine tendrils.”
“This fern piece has a rigid upright form and sports a metallic look, contrasting nicely with the fallen leaves.”
“This large, multi-piece sculpture is a study in contrasts thanks to the white branches of the sumac and the black branches of the Eastern Red Cedar tree.”
ON BRINGING NATURE INDOORS
“The Quick Fire Hydrangea is the perfect dried seed head to bring indoors to decorate for the holidays. To glam them up, just spray paint with silver or gold.”
ON GOING DORMANT
“Autumn is the season of transition to Winter. Winter is a time of dormancy, hibernation, tough conditions, and finding shelter from the storms. It is a time of introspection and internal growth after the exuberance of spring and summer growth and fruit and seed production.”
Thanks to Mother Nature for sharing the Beauty of November.
As told to Denise Brake
An October Day of Contrasts
When I woke up, I heard the slow plopping of rain drops through the leaf-clogged downspout outside the bedroom window. It was our best chance of rain in weeks, but it didn’t sound very promising. The dry weather at this time of year is wonderful for farmers harvesting beans and corn, but the trees, shrubs, and perennials need good, soaking rains in preparation for the harsh winter. Our sandy soil and the drying winter winds can zap the moisture away from the roots and the branches of the evergreen trees in particular, especially the young ones. So more watering will need to be done.
The drizzle had collected, then streaked down the screens of the porch, dotting and striping the landscape beyond.
The Diablo Ninebark had brightened to its fall color from the dark purple-red, and the honeysuckles had suddenly turned golden.
The heart-leaved bergenia had started its leaf by leaf color change, living up to its name in shape and color.
Apricot and rose-colored leaves on the gray dogwood looked vibrant against the drab, gray day.
Though the leaves were falling off the trees, a few flowers were still blooming–violet spikes of lavender, a rogue Canadian thistle, a rose-colored mum, and this daisy fleabane.
A young Nannyberry viburnum was the scaffolding for a spider’s web that connected to the golden honeysuckle, a vivid picture in front of the old oak tree trunk.
The leaves of the lupines were as green as ever, looking almost out-of-place in the autumn palette.
But the most amazing feature of the foggy woods was the tall, stately Monkshood! When most things are going dormant, these five foot tall spikes of violet-blue flowers are just coming into their own!
The beautiful late-bloomer dislikes hot weather, will grow in partial shade, and is poisonous, so the deer and rabbits don’t bother it. Each individual flower is shaped like a hood or helmet, giving rise to its common names.
A day of contrasts–the rain we had and the rain we needed, the gray, foggy day and the bright autumn colors, the dying, dormant plants and the vibrant blooming flowers.
I love the fact that the Monkshood blooms so late in the year–it’s so unexpected! And unlike the daisy fleabane that can easily be missed, the bright violet-blue flowers grab your attention and your admiration. Our lives are filled with contrasts, and how we look at them often determines the quality of our lives. Can we see the value and the goodness of one side of things even as that same thing causes more work or pain for us? Can we appreciate the brightness that may or may not be so noticeable on a dreary day? Can we be the sturdy scaffolding that holds the delicate, transient things in our lives? I will probably chop down that rogue thistle that announced itself with its conspicuous purple flower–I can acknowledge its beauty and know that I don’t want it seeding itself in our woods. But I will hold all these contrasts in my heart–with love–for it is within love that we can grow and bloom, die back and go dormant, and grow and bloom again.
A Change in Perspective
What if we saw our world from the perspective of a bald eagle soaring high above the land? We would definitely see the ‘bigger picture.’ We would also want the eagle’s excellent vision so everything wouldn’t be a blur. I saw a different perspective of our place on Sunday when I was on the roof painting the chimney. We live on a bluff of the Sauk River, though we usually can’t see the river because of the leaves and trees. But from the roof I could see the River widening into the Chain of Lakes and cloaked in Autumn finery.
It was fun to see the woods from the one story roof of our house. The curtain of maple leaves had dropped from the nearest trees, and I could see some of the colorful, stand-out beauties that are usually lost in the forest of green. I’m glad they have a season to be seen and awed over.
My rooftop view displayed the amazing amount of progress we have made in our war on buckthorn. What used to be a dense, homogeneous wall of green with mature oaks and cedars rising above it, is now a real woods with diverse plant life and paths to enjoy it.
But through the boldly branched oaks, I could see a patch of bright green–an area of buckthorn seedlings that had grown to four feet tall–and I made a mental note about that being our next place to work.
The eight foot tall Nannyberry Viburnum tree, splendid in orange and the focal point from the ground, looked small and insignificant from the rooftop. The magnificent oaks and the distant River captured my eye and attention.
On the other side of the house, maple leaves were falling like rain. The day before, we had raked huge piles of yellow leaves and mowed and mulched to a carpet of green.
And when the last leaves drop, we will have another day of the same.
We tend to see our lives from one perspective–from our two feet on the ground, historical, corrected vision. It’s only natural. But what would it look like from an eagle’s eye? What would your life look like from the rooftop? Do you see the progress you’ve made? Do you make a note of where you need to do some work? Or are the leaves and the trees getting in the way of the beauty and potential that lies beyond sight? Is the daily, repetitive work clouding the vision of your future? You don’t have to get on the roof to see your life in a different way–just let Nature change your perspective!
The Trees Were Glowing
The trees were glowing on our recent hike through Lake Maria State Park, a 1500 acre park of rolling terrain, old-growth forests, small lakes, and woodland marshes. Chris gathered a beautiful array of Bigtooth aspen leaves that carpeted the trail near the sunlit edges of the forest. The huge, old maple trees that elevated this woods to forest status had turned a brilliant golden color and shimmered in the autumn sunlight, causing an ethereal glow of the shaded trail.
The immenseness of the trees was brought to ground and sight with those that had fallen. They must have made earthquake rumbles and sharp cracks of breaking wood as they fell to the forest floor, crushing the young trees that grew along the axis of their path. Some fallen giants still had leaves from this year’s growth; others were decayed and covered with moss.
We spotted a little acorn bandit, cheeks full of plunder, backed into an awkward frozen position of potential fight or flight.
Bjorkland Lake reflected the blue of the sky and bore a circular wreath of cattails and common reed grass. It was quiet and empty of birds–perhaps they were hiding in the reed grass, but it seemed they were missing out on a glorious swimming day!
The quivering golden aspen leaves were singing the last refrains of their seasonal song, dropping note by note to the ground below.
Their audience of sumac, goldenrod, and gone-to-seed asters swayed with the song of the breeze, and for some reason, it reminded me of Christmas.
Neatly packed milkweed seeds lay exposed to the wind in a dried pod that had cracked open, while the fluffy stragglers from another pod clung to the rough casing.
A living arch invited us into the chapel of gilded maples, and we hushed as we walked the hallowed ground beneath their glory.
We drove to another area of the park, passing through a low wetland area where a yellow sign warned of ‘Rare Turtle Crossing.’ The Park is home to Blanding’s turtles, a threatened species in Minnesota. I spotted a turtle on a log in the tree-reflected lake, but this sunbather was a common painted turtle.
A common painted turtle living in an extraordinary autumn-painted world.
So often we take our world for granted, and yet, every single day we walk on holy ground. We want the hugeness and history of what came before us to stretch out in front of us for our children’s children. We are small, common creatures living in an extraordinary domain. In your tree of life, what song are you singing to the world?
Getting Rid of the Old
Autumn leaves are brilliant, colorful, showy, breathtaking, vacation-worthy, and postcard picture perfect….
photo by Aaron Brake
until they fall off the tree. Then they become crinkly, earthy-smelling piles of fun, work, mulch, and compost!
We all know that deciduous trees lose their leaves–the hallmark of fall. But did you know that evergreen conifers lose their leaves, too? Their leaves are generally called needles, and like deciduous trees, new growth occurs every spring. Unlike the deciduous trees who shed all their leaves each fall, the evergreens keep a number of years’ growth throughout the year. But they don’t keep them all. Evergreen foliage lives for one to seven years, depending on the species. As the new growth emerges, the older growth becomes shaded and produces less food for the tree. White pines keep three years’ growth in the summer, drop the inner needles in the fall, and keep two years’ growth in the winter. The inner needles turn bright yellow quite suddenly and remain attached for seven to ten days, depending on the weather.
And then they fall to the ground, carpeting the grass with a sappy layer of pine needles decorated with an occasional cone.
The inner scale-like leaves of Arborvitae (White cedar) turn brown and remain on the tree longer than the white pine needles, but they too will eventually fall off to mulch the ground below.
Red pines also exhibit seasonal needle drop, though not as noticeably as white pines or arborvitae.
Needle drop on spruces and firs is even less noticeable, for they maintain the largest number of years’ growth. On the opposite end of the spectrum are deciduous conifers that drop their needles every year–larch, bald cypress, and dawn redwood.
The larch
The death and deposition of the oldest, innermost needles of evergreen trees reflects the normal growth cycle of a healthy tree. The white pine in our yard looks lighter and healthier now that it has shed its yellow needles. It will be a beautiful beacon this winter in a landscape of white as it prepares itself for next year’s spring growth.
Like the evergreens’ inner needle drop, I think it’s important for humans to periodically get rid of ‘the old.’ Maybe getting ready for winter helps us do that–cleaning and tossing out junk that has accumulated from the carefree summer so that everything fits into the garage, shed, or closet. Making sure things are ready and fit for winter use. Cleaning up leaves and cutting back perennials so the trees and plants will be ready for new growth after their long winter hiatus. Perhaps we also shed some ‘old thoughts’ in the process that no longer feed us, making us lighter and healthier as we head into the winter and into our own preparation for a season of new growth.
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