Big Tree is a cottonwood, or – more fancy – Populus deltoides – living a stone’s throw from my backyard fence.
She’s a messy neighbour, scattering debris across my garden, each season distinct. In spring, there are dunes of long soft snaky catkins (proof she’s a girl tree). Early summer brings resinous samaras sticking my bare feet as I wander the garden. When the autumn winds arrive, she sheds her sturdy heart-shaped leaves which will not ever rot. I will find them still, gathered in corners and under the old yellow rose bush, until the next wave next year.
Gusty winds snap brittle knotty twigs and the occasional branch. Once a storm-driven piece of a broken branch pierced my lawn like a stake a vampire. Big Tree was fierce that day, and I was grateful to be indoors, sheltered and safe.
Reading up on poplars, I learned that it is a common thing for their branches may fall off without note or warning. “Sudden branch drop syndrome” or, more ominously: “sudden limb failure” it is called. Nobody knows exactly why it happens. Usually, in the summertime, a big old tree will, without warning, lose a branch. It’s not the wind; it happens on calm days. Some people believe it is caused by lack of moisture. Others believe it is caused by bacteria. Oak, beech, sycamore and especially poplar are prone to this happening. And if one branch falls off, then it is likely more branches will follow anytime later. Poor thing!
In my sixth decade, I also have bits falling off, vigour and strength faltering. I get you, neighbour, and I so love that tree. Like a cherished friend or family member, I forgive her mess and clean after her with minimal grumbling.
She stands tall and protective, whispering away with her foliage, generously shading hot summer days, letting the winter sunlight through her bare branches to lighten and warm my living room.
I gaze at her while hanging out laundry or watering the herbs, soothed by the constant rustle of her leaves and the magpies high up in her branches with their ‘quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle’ song.
Populus is Latin for “people,” and has been bestowed by Carolus Linnaeus some 200 years ago, for the rustling of the leaves in a breeze reminded him of “the murmuring of a great people.”
Maybe that’s why I rarely feel alone. I always have my good neighbour and its inhabitants singing and oodling and whispering, weaving their notes into the quiet song of my own life.
You can find and visit Big Tree here in the Simeon Park – 43°32’57.9″S 172°37’01.3″E
If you’d like to learn a bit more about her kind, here you can: Wikipedia Populus deltoides