Linden Time
Thirty-six years ago, when Michelle and I purchased the
five acres that our home is situated on, the only tree on the entire property
was a huge cottonwood tree that literally sits on the back property line. I am not sure what year the last farm crop
was planted here, but there still were some old corn stalks mixed in with the
wild flowers when we purchased the land.
We bought the land in late July. That first fall the County Agriculture Office
had a tree sale. I ordered 50 white
cedars; I thought would be a good start.
I remember packing up pails and burlap bags in our van and heading over
to the pick-up location on the far east side of town. When we pulled in and parked I suggested that
everyone just sit tight while I went to scope out how much help I would
need. I handed our receipt to one of the
people, he rummaged around a bit and then came back to me with a handful of
tiny cedar trees – maybe 8-10 inches long.
When I say that he had a handful, I don’t mean that he was struggling to
carry them all. He literally held all
fifty trees in one hand. I returned to
the van, held the little bundle of tiny trees
up and, as pompously as possible, announced to all of the wide-eyed,
excited passengers, “I give you all the Forest Wagnitz.”
What I discovered was that bare root stock trees are
small and five acres of open land is big.
We decided to notch up our research into what kind of trees we should
purchase and plant. Of course, planned
windbreaks and privacy screening like the cedars were one thing, but the most
important trees were intended to be planted close to the house. Some more of our trees came from the County Ag
Office, some were mail ordered, some we bought from local nurseries –
especially the end-of-season sales, some we got from my brother Jim who had
land up on the Menominee River that was full of little white pine
seedlings. I say little seedlings, but
they were two- three times the size of those cedars. But my favorite shade trees in the yard we
kind of got from the baseball diamond.
I should rather say that we got the idea for those
trees from baseball, little league baseball to be more precise. My two oldest boys played little league ball,
which meant, depending on the year and the age of the boys, that we were in the
bleachers at Perkins Park anywhere from two to four evenings a week from May
into late July. For a couple of weeks during
that span of summer the park was filled with a sweet, heady perfume. It took us a little research to discover that
what we were smelling and enjoying immensely were the flowers of the linden
trees that followed the first base foul line from the ball diamond all the way
to the playground.
I made the rounds for several years checking out all
the places that sold trees and flowers looking for end-of season sale prices on
linden trees. I had to do this for several
years as fall isn’t the best time to plant deciduous trees. One of the problems with planting at the end
of the season is that you have to wait all of winter and half of spring to see
if they are even going to bud out or not.
Several of them did fail, so I think it was almost five years before we
had three thriving lindens in the front yard and two more in the back yard. We did lose one to a tornado four years ago,
but the others probably stand a full thirty-five feet high. This week is the one that we have been
waiting for as the lindens are filled with clusters of yellow flowers, rich in
perfume.
Several of our neighbors, and even some who just pass
by on their daily walk have smelled the lindens and followed our lead in
planting them. Even more is that their
wild cousin in these parts, the basswood tree, flowers at the same time albeit not
as profusely as the nursery stock lindens.
Coincidently, or maybe more likely by God’s plan, the recent mornings
have been ideal for allowing me to pray Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the
Hours out on the patio. I think that God
wants to also enjoy the linden blooms as we have our time together.
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
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