Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2013 15:00:05 -0400
From: Bill Prentice
Subject: Willow trees
We grew up on land that bordered a “lowland” area. Today it might be called an estuary and protected. We thought of it as a swampy eyesore.
My dad decided to plant a row of weeping willows, from cuttings from a friend’s tree. My recollection is that he just cut branches and stuck them in the wet ground, and trees grew from those sticks, but i was just a kid and I may be wrong on that. Within a few years we had a line of beautiful weeping willows anyone would be proud of…
Tall, flowing, wispy-branched trees that blocked our view of the swamp. But weeping willows have a down side… They generate mounds of trash (sticks)… And attract tons of bugs… Aphids by the ton, along with ants, ladybugs, caterpillars, you name it. No sitting in their shade without something trying to drown itself in your beer!
And then the final insult…
At age 15 or so, they all called it quits. One by one they died, leaving a thirty-foot tall, thirty-foot wide mess to clean up.
The great willow experiment was a failure, if you consider how quickly 15 years passes!