Arbor Day is a national celebration of the importance of trees. The most common of which are spruce, pine, beech, oak, and birch trees. Although not considered a holiday in the US, Arbor Day is a day for planting trees and to celebrate trees as part of the global ecology. All 50 US states celebrate Arbor Day on the last Friday in April.

With Arbor Day coming up later this month, I wanted to share the story of one of our trees. But because its story began before I met my husband, I thought the tale should come from him. I asked him to write up the following story. As with all the photos on this blog, the pictures are all taken by us here at Eastborn Gardens, and those in this article were largely taken at the intervals specified in his story below.

April 2006, The First Paper Birch

Many years ago, around April of 2006 I planted a few trees around a newly built house near Indianapolis, Indiana.  Two were in the front yard, variants of crabapples, and not the focus of this story. In the backyard, however, I planted a paper birch as there were always a few of these on the property of my childhood home growing up.  I remembered them easily becoming 30-50 feet tall and providing splendid shade in the summer.  We used to picnic under them atop the rise they were planted on and could survey the valley below as the myriad sandwiches disappeared.

Fast forward to spring of 2006 and I planted a paper birch tree in the back of the new house in the middle of the wild grass.  The builder had been sold in the middle of our project and never placed a lawn in the back so I had to build one from scratch—that is another tale altogether. 

At any rate, the birch tree grew every year and became a lovely, if a bit prickly, presence in the back yard.  It grew way taller than the house and provided shade on sunny days. 

It also provided exciting times for anyone trying to mow around it and justifiably earned the title “Whomping Willow”.  On a breezy day, one could expect to get thrashed bout the head and shoulder by rough, whip-like branches as you dared to approach.  My then small, youngest son cackled as he could stand in its shade and remain untouched by branches whipping overhead. Eventually, the Whomping Willow grew to full height. I cannot over-state my delight when it was finally tall enough that the branches whipped harmlessly above my tall frame as well.

2018, The Paper Birch Sapling

Over the course of 2015-2019 my wife (the author of this awesome blog) and I took up gardening in raised boxes each summer. We received rich rewards of peas, herbs, and soooo many tomatoes. We had started growing cayenne peppers indoors at first, but a strange looking plant sprouted up and grew into something that was very much not a cayenne. It was so strong it started wiping out the pepper seedlings near it and we had to move “Goliath, the Vampire Pepper Plant” to his own space. He later revealed himself as an amazing cherry tomato plant, but that is another story as well.

Meanwhile, back at the tree. We noticed that each year towards the late summer, the Whomping Willow would send a cascade of seeds all around the vicinity. Some of which landed right in our raised boxes.

For a couple years, I was sure we always got them all out. But one time a few hardy saplings arose among the cherry tomatoes.

One of the saplings survived and became a sturdy little tree which we decided to transplant to a container as by then we were getting ready for a big move to Virginia.  When we sold the house, planning to move down to Northern Virginia soon after, the sapling went with us to our temporary rental lodgings.

The Pandemic Years

It turns out that the temporary lodging which we wanted to be in for 6-12 months lasted nearly 3 years as a pandemic came calling. We named the rental the Pandemic Palace.  The little sapling had a home on the front porch and lived there for the entire time we were in residence. We noticed that when properly watered it would flourish with healthy, large leaves each summer, and it handled the cold of winter without complaint.

In 2022 we finally aligned our stars to make a move to Springfield, Virginia. Of course the little paper birch had to come along with us.  It is covered elsewhere in this blog, but moving with a 4-5 foot tall paper birch is no minor effort. 

We quickly realized that we needed to extract the tree from the 50 pounds of ceramic pot and dirt to safely transport it.  The root base was so well-entrenched that we literally had to place it in a heavy duty contractor bag and break apart the pottery. It turns out that my FUBAR was the perfect tool for the job. Two taps got the crockery out of the discussion. Some plastic sheeting and burlap wrap later, the tree was ready for transport to its new home!

The Paper Birch Moves to Virginia

The trip through the mountains to Virginia was something of an adventure, but the well-prepared tree arrived without significant incident.  It seemed to be in as good a shape when we arrived as it had been the previous spring at the Pandemic Palace. So, I declared that a huge win.  We had some challenges with other plants that did not appreciate the ride with their cousins and a lot of random stuff. But Mr. Birch was like “What?”

When we arrived in Virginia at a Rental we call the Carriage House, the tree flourished in the Virginia climate.  A single spring and summer in Virginia added good deal of height and breadth! After only a month of sitting out on the deck, the growth and change was obvious. 

Late in the summer some local fungus got annoying, but we treated it and will again this year. We transplanted the thriving birch tree into its own large pot, and it really seemed to enjoy the summer.

The Moral to the Story

It is hard to believe all that came from a rogue seed pod and a tiny sapling in my tomato bed…

The moral to the story is that when you create something awesome, even if by accident, you should see it through and give it a chance to be.

The child of the Whomping Willow carries on the tradition of its parent from 17 years ago. It loves the warmer, longer growing season we have down here.  Eventually when Eastborn (the house we will build) is ready, this birch tree will have a place of honor in the Eastborn Gardens. There we hope to see it grow tall and proud for generations to come.  I think I will be letting someone else mow around it though….

The specific kind of paper birch tree that we’re celebrating for Arbor Day is a River Birch tree (Betula nigra). Landscapers commonly plant this ornamental tree in residential neighborhoods. It has large roots that seek out sources of water, commonly found near retention ponds. They can be messy in spring with seeds falling all over, as evidenced by this story. But they grow into amazing shade trees and live for 75 to 100 years.

For More About Arbor Day

For more information about Arbor Day and the Arbor Day Foundation check out https://www.arborday.org/. Learn how to get involved in Arbor Day to plant more trees for a greener tomorrow.