Wednesday, August 17, 2005
All Is Forgiven
I've lamented about how gardening in a woodland filled with large black cherry trees can be frustrating, due to the thousands of seedlings popping up every year in my flower beds. Since we lost all of our huge, old elm trees due to Dutch elm, we are left with some oaks, and the black cherries (Prunus serotina) as our canopy trees. There are perhaps 25 cherries 50-75 foot tall in just the one acre I have fenced off as a garden, which makes for a LOT of small cherries raining down on my garden... on quiet fall days, one can hear the constant drum of these small fruits striking the ground. However, they are beautiful, majestic trees, and this time of year, when they are weighed down with fruit, their high canopies are alive with birds, including many less commonly seen: red eyed and yellow breasted vireos, cedar waxwings, and several types of warblers, including the beautiful prairie warbler. The mulberries this year have been tiny and sparse, due to our drought, so we even spied a pair of raccoons high in the top of a black cherry the other evening. I guess I can put up with the seedlings.
// posted by IBOY @ 9:51 AM 
