By Gary Salmon It’s February, a tree’s dormant season between leaf fall, starch storage in the roots, and sugaring season. A time perhaps to dream of green days ahead, to read a good book, or otherwise shorten our dormant season. This line of thought brought me to ship building and the long history of wooden…

By Gary Salmon This headline is not related to politics. The term is the goal of people who make windows for homes and businesses and the clearer the better for those of us looking through a pane of glass. Early glass windows were limited in size and had “waves” in them due to the primitive…

By Gary Salmon “May” and “shall” are found on legal documents and for us laypersons mean “can” and “must.” These terms are important when reading H.673 which Governor Scott signed into law on Oct. 8 and became “the law of the land” effective Nov. 1. The legislation modernizes the existing tree warden statutes which have…

By Gary Salmon Maps are windows to our world. The more colorful the more interesting. They tell us where we have been and can even direct us to future actions. Two come to mind that have been useful this year. The weekly Tuesday Covid-19 maps of Vermont continued to stay the same color while a…

By Gary Salmon So who put the rock underneath this yellow birch tree? No one, but it is somewhat a characteristic of birches to occasionally get away with seeds landing and germinating on mossy logs, uprooted trees, rotten tree stumps, or even rocks or boulders. The common thread here is that the seed must land…

By Gary Salmon Aging in place, that’s exactly what trees do – from seed to standing dead. Some take longer than others but the difficulty lies in determining just how old a tree is at any point in time. For non-foresters the only way is to count the rings but that leaves you the answer…

By Gary Salmon Two very interesting tree questions emerged in July and a visit to an orchard further created enough work to keep one busy with trees. Locally monitoring what appeared to be a much shorter white pine needle blight season kept June and July much greener as well. The drier spring resulted in less…

By Gary Salmon The problem with this article occurred earlier when my mind went searching for a photo of an ornamental hemlock tree growing in someone’s yard. I have a large collection of tree photos filed away in both my mind and computer available for a wide range of needs which requires that I only…

Tree Talk By Gary Salmon One is a novel and the other a “how to book” detailing nature restoration, both serving to the reader an unforgettable message. Richard Powers’ powerful novel “The Overstory” reveals much of the ugly history of tree management in this country. Nearly a dozen characters are developed in “The Overstory” and…

By Gary Salmon At first I didn’t even notice it nestled under the root flare of a big white pine stump cut several years ago. But the idea of a white pine seedling growing while being sheltered by its larger former self was too much to ignore. The little 2-inch tall white pine seedling germinated…

By Gary Salmon Are you tired of the lives we are living (or not) since this corona? Days are certainly moving more slowly than in the past and each invites us to do something spectacular with warmer days and anticipations of the future. We need some sort of key movement to welcome us into spring…

By Gary Salmon I received an interesting gift this year from California relatives, that came probably from an estate sale. It is a library book from a long defunct library by [New Hampshire author] F. Schuyler Mathews entitled “Field Book of American Trees And Shrubs.” [1915] The givers were thoughtful enough to place my name…

One of the specifications included in late summer completion of the Cold River Road relocation project, thanks to engineer Mark Youngstrom, required the planting of trees where the original Cold River Road was. Otter Creek Engineering prepared the road project plan, M&M Construction did the road relocation, and Youngstrom with Tree Warden Gary Salmon got…

Tree Talk by Gary Salmon The only November foliage color is provided by the oaks, beeches, aspens, larches and Norway Maples. Yellow and brown are the colors of November with the oranges and reds gone until next fall. If you plan on planting trees next spring that you have dug up yourself it is always…