Posts Tagged ‘trees’
garden escapes: balm-of-Gilead
My mom used to take me for a walk around the garden when I visited. One of her favorite trees was the balm-of-Gilead. Her original tree had escaped into other places along the driveway and she loved its tenacity. She always pulled a leaf from a low branch and crushed it to bring forth the smell … slightly medicinal, aromatic and balsamic. I also love the colour, green with a tinge of orange bronze.
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The balm-of-Gilead (Populus × jackii or P.× gileadensis), is the hybrid between balsam poplar and eastern cottonwood. This hybrid is sometimes planted as a shade tree, and sometimes escapes from cultivation.
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As we drive the roads of abandoned houses and community, I often see balm-of-Gilead before I see any other garden escapes.
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In 1898, Beaufort, Carleton County, was a community with 1 post office and a population of 100. Today, there is only one, modern house in the community. But remnants of old gardens still remain. We saw many garden plants, both persisting and escaping: monkshood, dropwort, orange day-lily and butter-and-eggs. There were also apple trees and a poplar I identified as balm-of-Gilead.
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Today Beaufort is a long, lonely road with only traces of the former community.
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I took a slip of Mom’s balm-of-Gilead and planted it at our cabin property. It is taking its time, growing a little more each year. I think, when I am gone, perhaps this tree will have grown and be sending out descendants of its own.
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This work was made possible by a Creations Grant from artsnb!
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Take care, stay safe.
Don’t get Covid-tired.
Be tenacious like the balm-of-Gilead.
Jane
Stay Home
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Don’t know how many times
I can say it.
Stay home!”
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“Stay home?
What are you talking about?
I am rooted to the ground.
All I can do is
Stay Home.”
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“You can’t fool me.
I know you’ve been sneaking around.
Letting your roots grow
into all kinds of places.
Communicating with other trees.”
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“What are you talking about?
My tap root grows deep.
All I can do is
Stay Home.”
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“You can’t fool me.
I know you’ve been sneaking around.
Letting your leaves drop,
blow all over the woods.
Mixing with those of other trees.”
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“What are you talking about?
Can’t help it if my leaves are dry.
All I can do is
Stay Home.”
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“You can’t fool me.
I know you’ve been
conspiring with squirrels.
Spreading your acorns
all over the woods.
Mingling with other trees.”
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“What are you talking about?
I can’t be responsible
for what my children do.
All I can do is
Stay Home.”
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“All I can do
is repeat myself.
Stay Home.”
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All my best,
Jane
Staying Home!
talking trees
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trees in conversation
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they say
if trees communicate
they do so
beneath the ground
communication network
of rootlets
and mycelia
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I still listen
above ground
to the friction squeal
of trunks
rubbing together
flutter of birch bark
whisper of leaves
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I think they try
to learn my language
speak to me
of longevity, the cycle
of the story in layers
added year to year
bilingual trees
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All my best,
Jane
Watercolour lessons
Although I have painted in various media for years, I have never had a watercolour lesson. I decided to remedy this when a friend told me about a series of seven lessons being given in the evenings once a week at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design.
This week will be my third class and I have already learned so much.
Lesson one was a review of the colour chart and I learned how to find the complimentary colour and make variants of grey.
Lesson two had us trying various techniques. I have never sprinkled salt on wet watercolour before – the effects are delightful.
Although I have used resist techniques before, it was fun using wax pencil to make a moon.
Watercolour is very relaxing. I love the wet-on-wet technique, watching how colours bleed into one another.
And here is my new watercolour of tiny trees.
Looking forward to this week’s lesson.
All my best,
Jane
checking out the berries
As I have often written, our cabin is an enjoyable place to be. We read; we go for walks; we watch the birds; we occasionally do a little work (keeping the trails clear, working on the cabin).
This past weekend we identified the trees surrounding the cabin and we were pleased to find we had 13 different trees:
- horse chestnut
- red maple
- mountain birch
- white birch
- trembling aspen
- green ash
- apple
- red oak
- willow
- white pine
- black spruce
- balsam fir
- shad bush
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The berries on the shad bush are just beginning to form. At this stage they are about as big as a small pea.
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We weren’t the only ones interested in the progress of the shad bush fruit. While we watched, a cedar waxwing landed and stayed for a while.
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Last year we had fun watching the cedar waxwings feeding wild strawberries to one another! If you’d like to see those photos, click here.
Al my best!
Jane
after a poetry reading
Why do you go to poetry readings? Is it because you are supporting a writing friend? Because you love poetry? Or because you search for the perfect poetic experience — the memorable reading of an unforgettable poem, expressive words you know you will always be able to summon. Have you ever left a poetry reading feeling renewed, animated, believing in the impossible?
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I attend a lot of readings. I go to support my writing friends. I go because I love words and poetry. I also go because I long for the memorable. Occasionally, I will hear words, phrases, poems to thrill me for the rest of my life.
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I have had many such experiences. I have been privileged to hear Roo Borson read her poem Grey Glove. I have heard Roger Moore read poems from his book Monkey Temple with his stirring Welsh accent. Years ago I heard a young Irish poet read her poem about a kettle boiling on the stove, and I have never forgotten her words even though I have forgotten her name.
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after the poetry reading
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Bailey Drive is a steep incline
for an out-of-shape heart
a pause returns the thud in ears
to chest where it needs to be, a moment
to see maples on the Aitken House lawn
animated by wind, as metaphor for adrenaline rush
of words
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as trees send Tesla coil sparks into blue sky
from trunks constrained by building
and sidewalks, to branches and twigs
unfettered, plasma filaments bloom
on fractal paths
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another pulse, trunk to bud-tips
and another, signals up and outward
heart slows and holds in place
lightning throb in continuum of space
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All my best,
Jane
Arbour Day in New Brunswick – 1888
In a previous post, I wrote about the importance of trees in the school yard and the celebration of Arbour Day in schools in Nova Scotia during the early 1900s. One room schools in New Brunswick also celebrated Arbour Day.
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The 1888 Annual Report of the Schools of New Brunswick, by the Chief Superintendent of Education, reports on 1888 Arbour Day celebrations in New Brunswick, years before the first official Arbour Day in Ontario, Canada (1906). The purpose of Arbour Day celebrations in the school was:
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to encourage the improvement and ornamentation of school grounds and thereby of cultivating on the part of pupils habits of neatness and order, and a taste for the beautiful in nature …
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In 1888 New Brunswick schools celebrated Arbour Day on May 18. In the whole province, students planted 6,571 trees, 650 shrubs and 393 flower beds!
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Copyright Jane Tims 2016
early schools – Arbour Day
Trees in the school yard, especially big trees suitable for climbing and swinging, would have been an appreciated feature of the school landscape. On a hot June day, students would have enjoyed the shade under a big tree.
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In the 1940s and 50s, some of these trees may have been planted sixty years before by students learning about abouriculture. By the early 1900s, there were Arbour Day celebrations in Canada when students planted trees at school and elsewhere in the community. The first official Arbour Day in Canada was established in 1906 by Don Clark of Schomberg, Ontario to remember his wife Margaret.
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big spruce trees in the yard of the Cumberland Bay School, New Brunswick
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In Nova Scotia, schools celebrated Arbour Day by 1929 and perhaps before. In May and June that year, officials organized the planting of trees and shrubs in the school yard and involved community members and local dignitaries in the events to encourage their interest in the school system. In 1928, the newspaper Halifax Harald offered, province-wide, a $700 prize for school beautification, which would have included the planting of trees (Jane Norman, Loran Arthur DeWolfe and The Reform of Education in Nova Scotia 1891-1959. Truro, Nova Scotia: Atlantic Early Learning Productions, 1989).
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The idea of planting trees in school yards continues to this day. Trees are important because they:
- clean our air of pollutants
- remove carbon dioxide, to reduce the contribution to global warming
- prevent soil erosion
- trap water pollutants by directing flow downward
- provide habitat for birds, bees and squirrels
- raise property values
- provide the oxygen we breathe
- provide shade
- make great places for climbing and swinging
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Copyright Jane Tims 2016
early schools – the rope swing
Students in the one room school may have appreciated apple trees growing in the school yard. But there would have been other trees too. A hefty old red maple would have been a good place for a swing. Perhaps a simple rope swing, with a loop over a horizontal tree branch and a big old knot at the end for sitting.
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rope swing
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lunch hour
best spent
upside down
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legs wrapped
tight as twist
of hemp
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splayed ends
of the big knot
trail on the ground
follow hair and
dragging fingers
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world tipsy-turned
maple branch – a bridge across the sky
other kids stand on their heads
school house and outhouse
hang from the hill
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Copyright 2016 Jane Tims
trees and more trees (day 3)
Once I was asked to conduct a bus tour of southern New Brunswick for some visiting city administrators. I prepared well for the tour and had lots to show and tell them. I got a laugh for beginning my tour with: ” There’s a tree and there’s a tree and there’s a tree…. ” All joking aside, New Brunswick has a lot of trees. A drive almost anywhere means driving through many kilometers of forest or woods.
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map showing distance travelled (map from Google Earth)
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8-3 January 7, 2014 30 minutes 3.0 km (south of McLeods to McLeods)
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On the third day of my virtual cycling trip in northern New Brunswick, I took a few backroads and, you guessed it – saw lots of trees. Well I love trees, so that may be one reason New Brunswick, in my opinion, is a great place to call home.
For the most part, we have a mixed wood composition to our forests – both hardwood and softwood. One thing I’ve noticed in painting my first watercolours of New Brunswick is the dark blue tinge to hills on the horizon. I think this is due to the large number of conifers (White, Black and Red Spruce, Balsam Fir and White Pine, among other species).
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January 8, 2014 ‘Route 280 near Dundee’ Jane Tims
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Painting trees is a challenge for me. My biggest problem is ‘green’ … I use Sap Green and Oxide of Chromium, and mix these with blue and yellow, but I can never seen to capture the emeralds of nature!
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
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