Trees are the Bee’s Knees!

~ Becky Ross Michael
Quote from Tarun Sarathe

The last Friday in April is National Arbor Day, though some states also celebrate this on various dates, depending on ideal planting times. The importance of protecting our trees and planting new trees to replace those that die or are cut down cannot be exaggerated!

Besides providing the oxygen our bodies require, trees also offer us lovely views. From childhood, I fondly remember the stately maple trees in our front yard, each autumn turning fiery shades of red, yellow, or orange. Near the edge of our property, we had an apple tree that was just the right size for a little girl who wanted to climb trees but was afraid at the same time.

Behind our house, a huge willow tree grew. In my father’s bedtime stories, the Teenie Weenies of his tales, who were based on William Donahey’s books and comic strips, lived under that tree. I suspected for many years that this was truly the case. Walking out by the willow tree by myself was exciting but a little scary. What if I were to come face to face with one of those little people?

In my last home in Michigan, we had many beautiful trees in our yard and nearby. From small to large, some blossomed, while others provided a lovely green cover in the summer. But one small, funky tree holds a special place in my heart. It was a larch I had known since its infancy.

Each winter, I felt certain and horrified that it might die. Its branches were of the “weeping” variety, and the thin trunk appeared rather weak and almost bent. In the summers, I checked it often, lugged buckets of water during dry spells, and marveled at the feathery new growth each spring.

I miss that tree and all the surrounding beauty. There it is, below, near the middle of the photo, just to the right of the house corner. The light green on the ends is the new growth. I wonder if “my” tree still grows in that yard.

Where I now live in Texas, my only gardening space is the balcony. Although some people grow small, ornamental trees in pots, I have not tried this, yet. I recently read about growing miniature citrus trees in containers, which can then be brought in during the coldest parts of the winter. It’s a thought…

64 thoughts on “Trees are the Bee’s Knees!”

  4. My favorite tree from childhood was a HUGE blue spruce next to my grandparents’ cottage in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. When it was cut down in the 1980s, I was so upset! (If I remember correctly, it was diseased.)

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  6. Such a beautiful yard, Becky. I would miss that too. When we lived on the coast, we had two outrageous Norfolk pines. They survived Hurricane Harvey. Not sure they survived the freezing temperatures. Many did not.

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  11. I have a dwarf lemon and lime tree that seem happy in their pots…. have recently been researching potted avocado trees…. seems they can do well indoors with the proper care! Every tree counts!

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  12. Trees are the best. That was one of my main complaints about southern California–with rare exceptions, no real trees (I don’t count palms). It used to make me spitting, cussing mad to see developers cut down healthy mature trees when they would take out every living plant to build a new development. We’ve tried ornamental fruit trees but had to put the lemon tree outside so the bees could fertilize it. My husband watched the video but could not get the flowers to produce lemons by using a Q-tip to fertilize the flowers.

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  13. Becky, I’m with you on trees, especially the attachment when you grow & nourish one yourself. Dwarf spruce can grow in pots but I don’t know if they’d be sold (or thrive?) where you are.

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  14. That trees “resurrect” each Spring has always given me comfort and confidence. What a lovely post about tradition, trees and tenacity. I only have plants on the sunny windowsill of my apartment, but they do lend some joy and give me something tender to care for. 🙂

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  16. My tree memory is the mighty oak and it’s still standing tall and proud… I hope many more children are enjoying the climb as I used to although I was well and truly in the dog house at one time ..I remember it well… I had on my newly made pink polka-dotted dress …girls weren’t allowed to wear trousers then or at least we weren’t and I tore it climbing the tree I don’t know really what my mother expected as a tomboy I was …sigh…A lovely tribute to trees 🙂 x

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  17. Trees are just so wonderful, aren’t they? What would we do without them? (Well, we know the answer to that.) The little Larch is so charming. I think you deserve a charming little tree on your balcony. Go for it!

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  18. Were we neighbors in childhood? I grew up with maples in the front yard, apple trees in the back, and a huge weeping willow across the street in the corner of my grade school yard. We had some cherry trees, too, and believe me — they made a perfect place to take a book!

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  19. What a wonderful post!! I basically grew up in my grandmother’s Bartlett Pear tree. I’d take a sack with books and a sandwich up into the tree and read for hours. I’d eat my sandwich and if the pears were ripe a pear or 4. 😊
    I love trees and live in the PNW where there are lots of them. 3 tall Douglas fir’s and one tall Spruce are in my backyard alone… and the neighborhood abounds in trees!

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      1. Yes, my pear tree has shown up from time to time! The most amusing (at least to me) was when one of my character-in-a-pear-tree paintings was used for the cover of a college textbook about psychology! I still giggle with glee about that…
        Occasionally just the pear fruit shows up in my artwork. Sometimes my characters just have a pear shape to them. What I find also amusing is that I don’t really like to eat pears now as a grownup. I guess I got my fill of them as a kid. Do you use trees as symbols in your own writing?

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      2. I think I remember a few pears in your illustrations but don’t remember the full pear tree. That’s funny, about the psych textbook! That’s a good question, about the symbolism of trees. Possibly that has shown up in my writing…

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  20. Becky, I love trees too. We had a huge one in our last home that grew from a seed. My husband called it a “junk tree” because we didn’t plant it like our other showy maples and pear tree. But I loved it for it’s shade in summer and especially I loved listening to the sound of the leaves rustling in even a slight breeze. I miss that beautiful sound!

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  23. There’s a woman in England who blogs under the title Bramblegarden. She grows lemon trees in a greenhouse and harvests enough to use them in cooking.
    I used to climb a red cedar tree when I was a kid. I’d go right up to the top where the branches were only an inch or 2 in diameter, and the trunk maybe 6 inches. It must have been more than 50 feet up, but because I couldn’t see the ground through all the branches, I wasn’t scared.

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  25. Talking about trees gives me immense pleasure. I think I must tell you that my little balcony is entirely occupied by plants, leaving hardly any room for one to stand. While I love plants of any kind, hibiscus makes me crazy. When they respond to my love and care
    I derive the joy of being a proud gardener.
    Right now l have a small collection of yellow, Scarlet, red, and pink hibiscus flowers. I am very eager to bring in more and more of them…I liked the way you expressed the height of the apple tree 🙂🙂

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  26. I think my favourite tree when I was growing up was a large evergreen (I believe it was a pine of some kind, most likely a red pine) that grew on the corner of our yard (it was in a line of four evergreens, which included a white pine and a spruce of some kind). My dad attached a tire swing on it that I remember playing on a lot. Plus I used to play other games hidden under its branches and those of a lilac tree. 🙂

    But there were a lot of trees I loved in the nieghbourhood. Unfortunately many of them are gone now. Some were cut to make way for houses. Others were cut because people were worried they were dangerous. And others just got old and are no longer with us. It always makes me sad when they are taken down. 😦

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