Methuselah - the oldest tree in the world (photo by Rick Goldwaser)
Last November, I woke up with a compulsion to plant trees. Valarie—being the kind and patient soul that she is—humored me, and together we solicited her mom to join us in driving to Lowes. We bought three baby Bald Cypress trees (at half-price), and crammed them diagonally into our handicap van. Then we drove home, planted the trees in our backyard, and a month later I had written the first chapter of a novel. Spoiler: it’s about trees.
Actually, it’s about something else. The trees are more of a backdrop. At the very least, they’re the inspiration. But I can’t shake the impact that trees have had on me this past year (and for all of my life, really). If you think it’s just a fad, or a phase I’m going through (which I did, too), just know that I am now 14 chapters in, and over 50,000 words deep—thanks mostly to quarantine, but I’ll take my share of the credit—and still typing away.
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The lockdown for us—and for many of you, no doubt—has been an exploration of what Thoreau called “an exotic travel destination:” our backyard. This has been made even more poignant as we’ve been quarantined in my hometown, a city I hadn’t lived in for the better part of a decade. Our house, meanwhile, has a literal backyard, as well as a front yard, with few a garden beds, a pair of live oak trees, a lacebark elm, two cedars, a few rosebushes and oleanders and a Texas lilac, etc.
The spring this year was incredible. We joke about Texas only having two seasons: summer and winter. This year, we had a glorious two months of tolerable weather. I kept waiting for the ceiling to collapse, for the April highs to break into the 90s, for the heatwaves to start. But they never did, and so Valarie and I spent about as much time outside as we could get away with.
We started with the front garden bed. Valarie and I tore the whole thing apart, digging up deep rooted grasses, weeds, dead plants, and wild garlic (which had taken a vociferous liking to our clay soil). Then we moved on to our vegetable garden: a desiccated wasteland, looking much worse after its inaugural year. We expanded this little corner, built it up, put in a miniature white picket fence to keep our doggo out, and planted some store-bought jalapeños, squash, and a tomato plant. Next, we expanded our back patio (I know, it’s starting to sound desperate). We literally laid concrete. Almost two metric tons of it, to be clear. My back was sore for a week, but hey – we had three additional feet of porch extending out into the yard. We also built a planter box for strawberries, and we planted a crape myrtle, three more rose bushes, two hibiscuses, some passionflower vines, a dwarf myrtle, and propagated about 5,000 succulents.
Valarie at sunset in Wimberley, Texas
If you know about succulent propagation, you’ve probably propagated some succulents. And if you’ve propagated succulents, you and Valarie would probably be friends. It’s an addiction, and our windowsills are actively drowning in succulent leaves that have already propagated, are just beginning to propagate, or have yet to propagate. The last of these usually sit en masse in a small pot, side by side, their chubby little leaves prostrated across a bed of soil like sad cartoons, paralyzed and waiting to die. Then, one day, they sprout roots. Tiny linen fingers reach out from their amputated ends, and the leaf—a custodian of their genetic code—begins to shrivel up. From that limb comes the sapling of a new plant, but also the same plant. The same genetic makeup. A clone.
For those of you with more of a fantasy inclination, succulents are botanical trolls. Cut off their arm, and not only do they grow the arm back, but their arm grows another of them. Two trolls from one. Four trolls from two. Eight trolls from four. Until you’ve cut off so many arms that you’re facing an army of cloned trolls.
“It’s incredible!” Valarie said.
“It’s terrifying,” I said back.
“They’re practically invincible,” she said.
“They’re going to take over the world.”
Valarie laughed. I was serious.
Succulent. Photo by Yousef Espanioly
Valarie and I moved in together a year and a half ago. Slowly, gradually, I began to share in her affinity for plants. I remember our first spring, when she found her money tree sprouting a new stem of leaves.
“EEEE-he-he-he,” she squealed. And I, sitting on the couch, became anxious at the thought of her becoming the plant version of a cat lady.
I used to scoff at the pretense of gardening. It was human hubris, I thought, to try and control nature. That belief stemmed, in part, from the fact that I hadn’t the slightest inclination to grow plants myself. But also because I had spent a good portion of my life travelling to wild places. My roadtrip after college, to each corner of the United States, carried me through dozens of national parks. I camped as often as I crashed on someone’s couch. Afterward, I moved to Scotland to study my PhD. In Glasgow, the highlands are just a stone’s throw away. I travelled north as often as I could, and called those dramatic landscapes my backyard. Finally, I sailed around South America, down the pacific coast of Colombia, on to Patagonia and one of the most remote and dangerous places on the planet – Cape Horn.
I’ve witnessed firsthand the beauty of nature when left alone, and I find it superior. However, two years later—quarantined in our house in Bryan, Texas—I just can’t deny the immense gratification that comes from spreading mulch. The scenery in the Brazos Valley, and throughout Texas, can’t compare to Patagonia or the Scottish Highlands, but the land that Valarie and I are lucky enough to live on can be helped. It can be improved.
Life doesn’t always require nurturing, but it does always embrace it. A little love and attention can also have an incredible impact on the environmental and socio-economic condition of a community: like THIS experimental utopia in India. Here they practically terraformed a patch of desert into a woodland oasis. The temperature in “Auroville” has a lower average than the surrounding areas (by up to 10 degrees, Fahrenheit), and their environmental-economic impact has only benefited the neighboring communities.
That’s not to suggest that Valarie and I are looking to transform our backyard into an overgrown woodland (our HOA would never allow it), but I’ve come around to the individual, personal, and environmental benefits of cultivating plant life. Plus, at the end of the day, it just feels good.
Sunset in Wimberley, Texas
This year, I was the one who noticed the first new sprout on our money tree’s trunk. I called Valarie over and said, “Look!” as if I were the first person to ever identify a money tree awakening from dormancy. “You can even see the points of each leaf that’s about to grow!”
Valarie, as giddy as ever, joined me by the plant and cradled the little sprout in her hand. Seven tiny fingers were trying to emerge, unfolding at a pace, and with a patience, that I’ve been trying to emulate ever since.
