Planting Trees
“The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” - Chinese proverb.
Planting trees for me is an expression of hope, a way of communicating my intention to stick around for a handful of decades. It’s my way of hoping for a future where my grandchildren will still be living on the land. My way of blessing a future generation. On our homestead my family and I try to plant something new every year. This year we’re trying out 2 varieties of pine nut trees (Korean pine nut and Siberian cedar), English walnut, Oak hybrids (supposed to make palatable acorns) and more hazelnuts (nuts are so expensive in rural Alaska!). Some of my experiments take, others do not but I figure the more experimentation I do, the more likely I’ll end up with tree crops that are well suited to our climate.
Our little homestead is situated right on the divide of two climatic regions. Right now we’re enjoying a good ol’ soggy Southeast rain (Other Southeast communities, you know what I’m talking about here), but in the winter we seem to get some pretty good blasts of cold coming down from the Yukon that drop us to -15 to -25 degree F temperatures for a week or two at a time. Needless to say it’s proven difficult to find trees that work here, and one of my bitter disappointments this spring was to see that the 3 apple trees we planted last spring from a nursery in Washington did not survive.
As I gazed dejectedly at the bare stems with peeling bark protruding into the sky against a backdrop of verdant green from everything else in the garden coming back to life, I had the inspiration to look for signs of life near the roots. Low and behold, when I took the rodent guards off and probed gently into the loam around the base, there were some tender shoots coming up from the rootstock. Most apple trees you buy these days are actually grafted into a hardier rootstock to make them more resilient. My trees had died above the graft but survived in the roots and were regenerating. Now these trees that are being regenerated aren’t going to be the same delicious varieties that I had ordered, but as they pick up steam I’ll be able to try my hand at grafting a more desirable and better suited fruit variety in.
As I contemplated the relative resilience of these root stocks, I found myself thinking about parallels in resilience I’ve witnessed in my clients. Roots are incredibly important for people as well as plants. Our roots are what we sustain and identify ourselves with. They can be deep, or shallow, resilient, or fragile. If we live in the shallows of our soils, trying to sustain life on empty connections, distractions or trivial accomplishments, then the first hard frost that comes along is going to rock us hard. By contrast if we are connected to the deeper depths of who we are and engage in health-building activities then even if the frost comes, or the wind and snow knock some branches off, we will still put forth new life come spring.
When you look at the things your roots anchor to and draw nutrients from, do you have a sense of inner resilience and strength, or do you feel like you’re one bad storm away from washing out? How are you going to invest in your resilience?
