They Only Grow Out West

My wife and I were at the head of the trail that leads from our place to rail trail.  I’d noticed something which plant identification app had suggested was Oriental Bittersweet.  We looked at one and then other plant zeroing in and out trying to prompt to app to a positive identification.  She had me pretty deep into the flat plain that runs besides the old tracks when she spotted a group of silvery trees, which the app suggested were Trembling Aspen.  I’d thought they only grew out west in the Rockies.  I’d even thought of buying one and trying it out here. 

This copse of trees had one large aspen that rose up about four meters into the canopy.  The others were all under two meters high.  We agreed at the time to replant a few up to somewhere near the house and after some debate about where that would be, I set out today to replant some trees. 

The spot is on our property.  And it is right up against the well-trafficked rail trail and, sensitive to people assuming I was out poaching things from public property, I paused, awkwardly, every time someone passed by.  A first tree stood my height and I tried to cut out a circle around it with a one-foot radius.  I did my best to spare its roots, but the ground was rocky and mixed with the tendrils of many neighboring trees.  I pried up the circle I’d cut and finding it too large for the blue tube I’d brought along, I lugged it up about one hundred yards back up into our lawn and dropped it into the whole I’d dug for it. 

I brought up five more trees this way and created for myself a diagonal causeway of six aspen trees, ten feet apart in the shape of the letter w and the letter v positioned immediately adjacent to one another: wv.  I added potting soil and tried to step the soil down so they would stand up straight, but it became immediately clear that some of them would need a stake to hold on to if they were to have any hope of growing straight. 

I walked feet back up towards the house and imagined what they’d look like and what they’d sound like in a few years, if they were to survive.  

Sunday, 5/24/20