Too many trees

Back in 1997 during a major garden expansion, I had fun shopping for trees with garden designer Betsy Brown. She drove me around Massachusetts to pick out saplings of favorite tree species I’d dreamed of including in my ideal garden—in retrospect, too many of them. Betsy artfully placed new trees and shrubs in open ground we’d annexed, standing back to direct the landscape crew to move them a few feet this way and that until they were spaced just right.

    The new trees on the berm at the back of the lot looked a bit forlorn with lots of mulch between them. Back then it was hard to imagine that they’d ever fill the empty space.

Newly planted trees on the berm, 1997

Well, twenty years later, they’ve done that and more.  First the young trees grew taller and fuller. Then they reached out and touched branches with their neighbors. 

Touching shoulders in 2006

This year I looked at some photos and realized the trees on the berm were crowded. We’d planted them too close together.

This week--too crowded

    When my friend Marlyn invited me on a tree walk through Newton Cemetery, I got to see a more farsighted planting approach. Groves and single trees were amply spaced to create painterly vistas. I observed what several of my trees would look like if they’d grown up with unlimited room to spread out and no nearby competition for sunlight and moisture.

Japanese umbrella pine at Newton Cemetery

And trying to grow in my crowded yard

     






     I’ve taken down some trees over the years to reduce crowding. Betsy’s original design involved a circle of lawn lined by four graceful white-flowered redbuds (Cercis canadensis f. alba). I’ve since regretfully removed two of them. When they were young, their lithe branches lined with tiny white blooms in May looked like dancers in a green woodland. 

One of the redbuds in its early days

Unfortunately, the trunks couldn’t grow straight because of expanding shade from taller trees.  

One of two remaining redbuds, reaching for sunlight

As the ill-fated pair leaned farther and farther out over the lawn and shaded out perennials I wanted to grow nearby, I made up my mind that they’d have to go. Their stumps still make me feel like an assassin, as do the empty spaces left by hemlocks we took down this year.

What terrible person cut down this tree?

    At this point there’s no easy way to make more room for the trees. I can let the inter-weaving of branches continue or make more hard choices and edit out more trees. As I plant in the empty space left by the hemlocks, I notice that as they expanded, they distorted the growth of surrounding trees. A Hinoki false cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa) has no living branches on one side where a hemlock muscled in on it. 

Branches died on the side where the hemlock shaded out this tree

    If I did remove trees from the berm, the ones remaining wouldn’t have symmetrical shapes. Once they’ve shed their needles because of too much shade, branches of these conifers won’t send out new foliage.

    What to do? I’ll probably delay action until one of the trees dwindles or becomes a danger and has to come down. It hurts to cut down trees.

Attention friends: I'll be speaking at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society's Ecological Gardening Symposium next Wednesday, November 8, at Elm Bank in Wellesley, MA. Here's a link to the program information. I'd love to see you there.