We didn’t see it fall. We didn’t hear it fall, either. This somehow made the whole affair more wretched.
It was an early Friday evening and outside, a nor’wester was throwing its weight around after a wind warning had been issued earlier in the day: it was nothing we hadn’t had before.
We had retreated inside despite the heat, closed windows on the windward side and gone about our usual business for that time of day: I was watching the telly as the domestic goddess was preparing dinner while listening to yet another true crime podcast.
Neither of us was much more than 20m from the scene, and yet neither of us was aware it had happened until I rose from the couch to join Michele in the kitchen.
I looked out the window and couldn’t believe what I was seeing: half of our wonderful honey locust tree was on the ground. I called Michele over and we both stared at the terrible sight, then gave each other a hug.
For gardeners, the loss of a mature tree is always distressing. But to lose a tree which is a central focus of a garden or a lawn is simply devastating. The honey locust has been growing in the centre of our largest lawn since old Albert, who once owned Lush Places, put it there some 20 years ago.
It was a clever piece of planting by a clever plantsman. Not only does this American deciduous tree have a slender, graceful growth pattern, its leaves turn a wonderful, luminous gold in autumn.
And through summer – at least a hot, dry one like this one – its high canopy and feathery leaves offered a splendid patch of dappled shade. Under its sheltering arms we have enjoyed drinks with mates, read quietly alone and, when the weather suited, had long Christmas lunches. And now, half of it was lying on the ground.
Janet, who lives around the bend with Blokesy Stokesy and has saved trees of her own that have been badly wind damaged, came over to offer advice and consolation. She was moved almost to tears by the damage, which left a metre of main trunk exposed.
Could we save the half still standing? She thought so, if we stuffed sphagnum moss in the cracks of the torn wood, used a heavy-duty tie-down to pull it together and applied pruning paste to the wound. Stokesy reckoned I ought to trim the remaining crown, too, to balance the weight of what remained, which seemed sensible.
But first I would have to do something about the half that was on the ground. I headed to the garage to dig out my safety chaps and gloves, helmet and chainsaw.
As I set about cutting up the corpse, before transporting it to the burn pile in the apple tree paddock, I looked carefully for signs of disease or rot. I couldn’t see any.
Honey locusts have very dense, shock-resistant wood which can be used for things like fence posts, tool handles and the like. It apparently makes good firewood, too.
They are reasonably long-lived as well, with a life of up to 150 years, though you must watch for their main diseases, cankers and root collar rot. Ours appears to have neither, though I had to cut dead branches from it in spring.
However, the trunk was bifurcated about 1.5m from the ground, always a potential weakness for a tree, and that is where the tree had split. Yet it had stood up to greater winds than those that Friday. So, why now?
A thought – perhaps it was that mysterious thing an arborist told us about many years ago in Auckland, when we lost another special, specimen tree: summer drop.
Whatever it was, our honey locust is now literally half the tree it was, and trying to nurse what is left of it back into good health may be a lost cause, but it’s one worth trying.
Whatever happens, we will mourn, because Lush Places’ garden will never be quite the same again.
