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A Dream of Dogwoods

Monday, April 26, 2021


I have a dream, and it is all about dogwoods. It's a dream of building a gallery of dogwoods, a place you can walk and meanwhile drown in their white blossoms. 

I always gave Bill all the credit for having the vision and chasing it down to make it real, but I have vision, too. This vision, this dream, has crept up on me in the last few years. As many dreams do, it started with what I didn't want. And what I didn't want was a mess, a horrible overgrown orchard barricaded by dozens of fallen trees, nothing anyone could stroll through or take joy in. That's what I had in 2018, when a derecho wrecked the place (which wasn't very nice to start with). 

The orchard had fallen into great neglect. It had fallen in on itself and exotics had taken over, as they will when you turn your back for a couple decades. Everything took precedence over cleaning it up, and we didn't really notice the inroads the rose and honeysuckle had made until it was too late to do anything about it. It was overwhelming. And once the trees came down, the overgrowth went wild, and you couldn't get a tractor through to even cut the paths. That wasn't my dream. That was my nightmare. 

I set about rectifying that in the winter of 2019. I hired a small team of Amish chainsaw artisans, who rented a Bobcat, and they made it possible to get through the paths, to see where my vision could lead me.

In this panorama, you can see a brushpile, backed by blooming dogwoods. This is my backyard. This is the second such pile I have built since fall of 2020. I burned one, and it went up with a roar that lasted all day and into the night. And then I made another that's even bigger. The first pile I made with hand pruners. It was very hard won. This second pile I made with a chainsaw. It was hard-won, too, but my hands and arms feel a lot better this time. There is another massive pile twice its size up on the east hill. Some of that one was made with a bulldozer. Both will be burned soon. 


I owe what you're about to see to these piles of brush, to the grit and utterly driven fervor that have possessed me to clean this place up. I had to uncover the dogwoods.

I had to dig these floating white butterflies out of walls and mountains of horrible multiflora, to take the jabs and hooks to my arms and legs, neck and torso. I got a thorn in my scalp today. That was cool. Truly, you couldn't even see the form of these two dogwoods for thorns and vines. I was sick of it, sick of staring  at drowning trees, wondering what they might look like under all that overgrowth. 

This is what they look like. Having been buried, they were forced to make incredible outward growth, as they strove to reach past the tangle and toward the sun. And stripping all that junk away leaves these impossibly graceful cantilevered limbs. I love them desperately, all the more because they tell a story of having been imprisoned, and now living free. Every dogwood in this place has deep spiral scars on its trunk and limbs, from the honeysuckle that strangled it. These dogwoods have wabi-sabi. They're grateful survivors, and they are past worrying about cosmetics. They're just glad to be alive.



Their blossoms look like cabbage white butterflies, floating on the breeze. No visible means of support. Just flying. 

The first tree I freed was the one I call The Dogwood God. It deserved to have the vines and thorny canes cut off it first. The Dogwood God is so huge and old it is impossible to photograph well. You have to be in its presence to appreciate it. 


It's so tall that its flowers float high above, and you can't really appreciate them from the ground! 
But I do, I do. 


Curtis is slipping through a patch of spring sun here, and you can see how big the tree is relative to him.
It's down at the far end of the old orchard, where the paths are wide and the maples are dominant. I love that part. 


I keep on photographing this tree, trying to capture its majesty. It really helps to have a dog for scale. It really helps to have a dog at all.


It's the tree's spread that makes it so special. I remember noticing it when we bought the place back in 1992, and remarking on how long its branches were. But somehow I didn't revere it the way I do now. Things like old trees get more precious the older one gets.


There's that reach, that spread I was telling you about. 
Before it rotted and fell off, it had a low branch that was even longer than this one. It was ridiculous.


Dogwoods aren't normally very large trees. Most of the trees I love are on the small, gracile side. I thought birches were my favorite tree until I became obsessed with freeing dogwoods. 


Now, when I walk through the orchard, I assess it all in relation to the dogwoods. What compliments them, and what detracts? I remove that which detracts, and it is always something invasive. I removed a huge Russian olive here, and the sinuous dance of the happy dogwoods thus revealed was a sight to behold. I've made several such openings, little dogwood groves, in the orchard rows. 


And so I've come to know this place, by carving it out tree by tree. There are still messes, but they are fewer and farther between now, and they are shrinking. The native beauty that has been buried for years upon years is emerging. Beauty is winning. 



I'm writing this hanging in my Air Chair by the greenhouse. The purple Moonstruck petunia is pumping out its evening fragrance, trolling for moths. I note with some amusement that it smells just like the Russian olives, which I sniff out and saw down as fast as I find them. I spray their cut stumps and order them to stay dead, but it rarely works. 

Last night, I got up in the wee hours and went to the back patio slider to look out at the almost full moon as it sank toward the west. The moonlight on the bank of white dogwoods almost brought me to my knees. I think that was the first time I'd really seen dogwoods in strong moonlight. God, it was like drinking a glass of brandy all in one gulp. And if that weren't enough, there was a big doe nibbling at the fresh-cut stuff on the brushpile, and she leapt sideways when she saw me at the window, disappearing under one of those banks of white moon blossoms. Honestly, it was all enough without a large mammal levitating sideways. 


Tonight I'm going to try to stay up late enough to take a moonlit walk through the orchard, with no flashlight. The glowing dogwoods will show me the paths. A barred owl is hooting down in Orchid Holler, as if cheering me on. Oh, now the whip-poor-will has started singing! It's flown so close I can hear the hollow cluck it makes right after the "will!" Spring is just too sweet and beautiful! Still, even with a singing whip and moonlight on dogwood flowers, it's hard to stay awake very long when you've been cutting and hauling brush all day. 

I have more photos of the dogwoods in full bloom, but I figure you're overloaded by now. Next post. And the coyotes begin to wail. It's a good spring night on Indigo Hill. 



13 comments:

Glorious!

I love your dogwoods! They are glorious! Thank you for sharing. Your writing is so powerful!

Fabulous reward for all of your torturous work!

I am starting a rescue in my old apple orchard this year. Since I have almost 20 years on you, send kind thoughts to my creaking infrastructure. Not sure what I face beyond poison ivy. But they gifted me with scads of apples last year after I had ignored them.

Great. Visual post. Can’t wait for part two....

الحجر الهاشمي:

الحجر الهاشمي نوع من أنواع الأحجار التي يعتمد عليها في عمل الكثير من الديكورات الحديثة التي يعتمد عليها في الوجهات بشكل خاص، من أهم المميزات التي تتلق بهذا النوع من الحجر أنه يحتوي على عدد من الأنواع والدرجات التي يمكن للعميل الاختيار فيما بينها حسب نوع المكان المراد تجيزه سواء واجهة سكنية أو واجهة مكان عمل، من أهم ما يتميز به هذا النوع من الأحجار المتانة لذلك يصمم من خلاله الوجهات كما يوفر عدد متنوع من الألوان التي تساعد على إرضاء كافة الأذواق وبالتالي يمكنك اختيار ما يناسب بكل سهولة من أهم المميزات الخاصة بهذا النوع من الحجارة النظافة بحيث يمكن تنظيف الحجر فقط من خلال المياه وهو عامل مهم لإعادة الواجهة من جديد يوجد عدد متنوع من أشكال وأصناف هذا الحجر
واجهات حجر هاشمي

من أنواع الحجر الهاشمي:
• الحجر الراس
• وحجر الأبيض
• وحجر الكريمي
• وكذلك حجر الهيصم
• وحجر السانت كاترين

وكل نوع من تلك الأنواع له عدد مختلف من الميزات كما يختلف كل نوع من حيث السعر والاستخدام المعد له، لا يقتصر العمل بالحجر على مصر فقط هناك عدد كبير من الدول التي تعتمد علية بشكل أساسي في تصميم الوجهات.
الحجر هاشمي هيصم:
حجر هاشمي هيصم

من أهم مميزات الحجر الهاشمي أنه من الأحجار السهلة من حيث الصيانة ويمكن إعادتها جديدة مرة أخري من خلال طرق بسيطة ويمكن للعميل ذاته تنظيفه من خلال الغسل بالمياه العادية.
كما يمكن تشكيل الحجر حسب الموديلات التي يحتاجها العميل وتصلح الوجهات لتكون وجهات فيلات وقصور وكذلك مجمعات سكنية موحدة المظهر الخارجي من حيث التصميم، كما يمكن الاعتماد عليها في ترميم المتاحف والقصور التاريخية ويمكن تصميم شركات بها فالحجر مرن ويمكن تطويعه وتصميم الموديل المطلوب بكل سهولة.
واجهات حجر هاشمي هيصم
ولكن يجب اختيار فنيين محترفين للعمل من خلال شركات كبري ذات ثقة تعمل في هذا المجال مما يساعد بدوره على توفير نتائج مبهرة وضمان الخامات التي يتم العمل بها في البناء كما يجب صيانة الجدران بشكل مستمر لتظل محتفظة برونقها كامل كما هو ويجب علي العميل تنظيف الجدران لعدم انتشار الأتربة التي تفسد المظهر الخارجي للمبني

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That subset picture with the dogwoods is wonderful! They must be something to walk under as the flowers begin to snow down.

Things that are Holy.

Such beautiful photos, I feel how sublime it is to actually experience the liberated dogwoods blossoming. I am sure you are right and next year will be even more spectacular in your dogwood grove. What trees comprise your orchard? I imagine apple, but plum and cherry, maybe pear, are also possibilities. The old orchards of my childhood neighborhood were magical places. I hope you are inspired to paint your dogwoods in bloom. Thank you for sharing the flowers of your labor.

gail

Beautiful and magical -- both the dogwoods and the writing. Bless you and all your hard work.

Never too many dogwood photos! Rewards are many in your neck of the woods. Is the last photo taken from your tower? It's just breathtaking. A friend planted a moonlight garden next to her patio. It was pretty in the daylight but one night we sat out there during a full moon and it was simply magical. I promised myself to plant my own moonlight garden. I can only dream of your moonlight dogwoods!

Terrific to see such dogwoods! We’re that bit north to have them, but in better times travels at this season to New Jersey and Maryland were a joy partly on their account. Something about how they like to grow in relation to a larger tree? Also those planes of luminous blossom (properly bracts, I gather), branch by branch.

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