Tree Talk
34
Stories
2
Writers
After the leaves have fallen
December 7, 2022
By Gary Salmon Several years ago, Michael Wojtech’s book, “BARK: A Field Guide to Trees of the Northeast,” came out, which helped in this difficult identification process. Bark is not as consistent as leaves are and changes as the tree gets older, as rates of growth change over time, and where on the tree the…
Fall views, fresh eyes, new perspective
November 2, 2022
By Gary Salmon When you are 75 and have seen fall from the same house in the heart of foliage country for 50 years, it can become a little jaded. "Seen it all before" was unfortunately my mantra and same colors/same views was my viewpoint. What I needed was a fresh set of eyes to…
Time is everything in forest restoration
August 10, 2022
By Gary Salmon The mortality figures are astonishing among the three tree species nearly eliminated from our eastern and Midwestern landscape by either chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica), Dutch elm disease (Ophiostoma novo-ulmi), and now emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis). Four billion chestnut trees killed since blight introduction in 1904 (most between 1930s and ’50s and…
Gotcha!
August 3, 2022
By Gary Salmon This is the business end of a purple sticky trap. It is a three-sided affair which is suspended from a tree nearly 20 feet in the air. We have all seen these hanging from “trees of concern” to help determine the presence of Emerald Ash Borer. Even our roads in Shrewsbury had…
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It’s flying season
June 29, 2022
There seems to be an increase in citizen concern about emeraldash borer (EAB) based on the number of calls and e-mails I have been getting this summer from people wanting simple answers to difficult questions. The difficult part is the nature of the eemerald ash borer itself and its direct impact on ash trees. We’re…
Baxter beauties, neighborly sights
June 22, 2022
They are living about three blocks apart and are almost twins in size and shape. One is on Maple Street (between Pine and Baxter) in Rutland and the other is on Baxter (between Library and Park). There is actually a third one at the corner of Pine and Maple but it is smaller and not…
The colors of summer: Yellow, white and green
May 25, 2022
By Gary Salmon June has taken us from the early yellow-green foliage of spring to the more mature dark green canopies that will grace the 6.5 million acres of Vermont’s forest for the remainder of the summer. The goal, of course, will be to keep that color over the growing season in spite of threats…
View with a room
April 27, 2022
By Gary Salmon This has been a cold spring without many consecutive days of similar weather so the first half of March was spent looking at the world around us from the windows surrounding us. The invitation to actually get outside and away from the looking glass would come, I thought, when consistent warm weather…
New life into an old program
March 2, 2022
By Gary Salmon People have always been interested in “big trees.” That is, those that catch our eye and inspire majesty and curiosity in us. The redwoods of California have been the “must see” trees since our country was settled and still attract millions of visitors annually. However each state, including Vermont, has its own…
Good bag and a clear night
January 26, 2022
By Gary Salmon You know that there is a big difference between waiting for spring and embracing winter. One involves a warm fire, a good book/Netflix, hot chocolate, and windows to the world both inside and out — a certain degree of passivity if you will. However, with miles of trails, or not, and thousands…
Looking at the forest from all angles
December 1, 2021
By Gary Salmon When in a forest, our eyes focus usually on two features: the trees in the vertical scale and to a lesser extent those on the horizontal scale. But some trees fit neither of these and can really catch your eye. It is those that lean, having fallen partially down due to uprooting…
Where art thee going?
November 24, 2021
By Gary Salmon It has been a year since the passage of the new tree warden law and a year to try to interpret which changes are important and which are not. On Nov. 4, the Vermont Urban & Community Forestry Council sponsored a webinar featuring Carl Andeer, staff attorney for the Vermont League of…
Not “just a bunch of trees”
September 29, 2021
By Gary Salmon Just as fall is appearing, two trees pop into the landscape whose color will be okay but whose form is what catches the eye. They both live in Rutland, one on Court Street across from Grace Church and the other, a quiet life at the Godnick Center out on the Deer Street…
Photosynthesis and forest carbon sequestering made easy
September 1, 2021
(Can’t have one without the other) By Gary Salmon As a part of the Forestry Building display at this year’s state fair there was a very simple (as if anything chemical is simple) explanation of the relationship between photosynthesis and today’s hot forestry topic, forest carbon sequestering. In fact, I wanted to call the seedlings…
There is a season, prune, prune, prune
August 5, 2021
By Gary Salmon In early July I got a call from two members of the Northam Church concerned about the role a tree might play during the summer season on Sunday mornings. This sugar maple had been planted several years earlier, perhaps a little close to the church, but seemed to like it there and…
Messy circumstances
June 30, 2021
By Gary Salmon It’s been 30 years or so since gypsy moths were last here in any numbers and what a mess they made. The population was so large that they not only ate the leaves off their preferred oak trees but also other hardwoods like maples and then even to pines. It was easy…
‘Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin’ alive,… stayin’ alive’
April 28, 2021
By Gary Salmon There is a line in the lyrics of this great Bee Gees song of the ‘70s that if I were an ash tree and John Travolta was singing it to me I would pay attention to: “Life goin’ nowhere, somebody help me.” Since emerald ash borer (EAB) began infecting Vermont ash trees…
Trees – you can bank on them
March 31, 2021
By Gary Salmon So how do trees work like a bank account? When they are sequestering carbon as all trees have over eons. A forest of trees is like principal, that grows and occasionally gets partially withdrawn (harvested). The faster and longer the growth the greater return from your collection of carbon sequesterers. It’s a…
Drip, drip, drip
March 10, 2021
By Gary Salmon I have the luxury of having a window just above the sight line of my computer. It is my icicle monitor and I have been waiting for it to change structure now for about a month or more. I like icicles. They look nice in the cold reminding me when to turn…
