Just north of the charming downtown district of Lebanon, OH, an area with well-known buildings and historical markers spanning over two centuries, a different kind of historical marker recently caught my eye. In the expansive front lawn of an elementary school building, I beheld two massive American sycamores towering over the manicured lawn. As any […]
Today, we are launching a new project “Great Trees of the Bluegrass” to locate and identify important trees in our region. We have a new Facebook Group: Great Trees of the Bluegrass for you to contribute your own observations, and we are also creating a new web-based identification and mapping tool for your use. The purpose of […]
Many of us learned the great Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem The Village Blacksmith in school, which begins: UNDER a spreading chestnut tree The village smithy stands; The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands. As a forestry student, I learned that […]
A couple of weeks ago, we told you about a magnificent, ancient bur oak that was suddenly defoliated overnight. We said that it would recover quickly and that we would update you. With 10 days of mild weather, the tree has leafed out very quickly. Most trees maintain large reserves of starch and protein in […]
This is the year of death in central Kentucky. The emerald ash borer has been slowly expanding its population, and has now reached the point of mass destruction. You can see dead and dying trees all over town, most of which have died this spring. From here on, barring some miraculous change in ash borer […]
You may recognize the bur oak in this page from previous photos. It is a magnificent, ancient bur oak in Kirklevington Park. I visit it often. Last week I was looking at the tree in the late afternoon and noticed a few leaf fragments on the ground. The next morning, I came back and saw that […]
The new fall catalog for the University Press of Kentucky has just come out. They used photos from my book on the front and back cover of the catalog, and there is a full-page description of the book on Page 21. You can download or get a print copy of the catalog at the University […]
What is your favorite tree book? We are creating a list of all the best books about trees. Whether field guide or fiction, art book or paperback, tell us what tree books are important to you. We will accumulate the list from your Facebook comments (you can post to Facebook by scrolling down on this […]
We need more great books about trees, don’t we? Here is your chance to help a fine author and passionate tree person to publish his next book, World Tree Story. Julian Hight is an author, designer, photographer and musician. His very fine book Britain’s Tree Story has a prominent place on my bookshelf. In that book, he […]
Is that tree causing your allergies? That pretty tree with the white flowers? That pine tree covering your car in green film? Nope. It’s the trees you don’t see that are getting you.This is the height of allergy season. You can feel it in your sinuses and see it on your car windows. Huge amounts […]
All over Kentucky, there is an explosion of the amazing white flowers of black locust, Robinia pseudoacacia. This is a tree that is both loved and hated. While it is in flower, I thought we’d take a few moments to talk about the virtues and sins of black locust. Here are the things we love […]
For the last 10 days, I have watched an amazing phenomenon that I have never seen before. Oaks are wind pollinated. Occasionally we see insects visiting, but only casually. However, one bur oak that I keep an eye on has been abuzz with activity. Every day while the male flowers were open, there was a […]
The novels and stories about Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle are filled with keen observations of the world around him. I have read Sherlock Holmes repeatedly since I was a kid. Today, I find that Sherlock Holmes stories help me focus my own writing on details and precise observations. Recently, in reading Holmes once again, […]
Have you seen the sugar maples in flower? In Kentucky, they are flowering right now, but you need to look closely to see them. The flowers are not very show, their pale green blending with the green riot that is spring. These interesting flowers will reward the careful observer. Sex in maples is complicated. Even […]
All over central Kentucky, ornamental pin oaks are in trouble. They are slowly declining and dying, and looking terrible in the process. From street trees to horse farms, thousands of pin oaks need to be removed over the next few years. The primary cause is an odd species of bacteria, Xylella fastidiosa, that lives in […]
American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) flowers in late spring and creates the well-known sycamore ball that kids are fond of throwing at each other (not quite as painful as sweetgum balls). The fruit is unusual because it stays on the tree all winter as a hard, dormant ball. The following spring, the ball begins to expand […]
On my walk yesterday, the world was filled with the smell of spring. The smell of flowers and barbecuing meat will be along soon enough, but early spring is dominated by the earthy fragrance after rain and the wonderful, evocative odor of new-mown grass. Lawnmowers were whining away last weekend mixing the smells of new mown grass and […]
The Venerable Trees of the Kentucky Bluegrass are extraordinarily long-lived. This past weekend, we lost one of the largest and oldest bur oaks in the region. The tree, at the corner of Versailles Road and Man O’War Boulevard on a farm, fell to the south. The death of this tree was most unusual. It was […]
“The sap is rising” is an often heard description of early spring. If you cut into the stem or branch of certain trees – sugar maple, birch, hickory, walnut, or sycamore – on a cool spring day, you may see sap dripping from the cut end, or an icicle of sap forming. The sap is slightly […]
If you go to Lexington or Paris farmers’ markets, you may know Oakland Farm, “Home of the $10 Tree” Tim Diachun, our business manager, and I spent a wonderful afternoon at the farm with the owners, Doug Witt and Laura Greenfield. Oakland Farm is not named for the trees they grow in their nursery, but […]
Hazardous street trees can cause a huge amount of damage, including personal injury and property damage. Here is an egregious example. This pin oak is at the intersection of Robin Road and Tates Creek Road. It is right next to the newly installed sidewalk and adjacent to a major power line. The tree has been […]
Finding left-behind trees can be the start of an urban adventure. As our woodland pastures were developed into urban areas, most of the trees of woodland pastures were cut down. A few remained, usually as single trees in a parking lot or front yard. Here’s where the adventure comes in: when we find a single […]
You may feel we are in the throes of winter, but for many trees, it is already early spring. How can that be? In the late summer, trees begin to enter a stage of deep sleep called dormancy. They don’t stop growing because it is cold, they stop growing because a combination of long nights […]
The Veteran Oak in Lexington is one of the most iconic trees in the city. A magnificent bur oak, it lies along a popular walking path on the south side of town. The Veteran Oak is a left-behind, the only ancient tree in a young riparian (stream-side) forest. Most of the ancient left-behind trees are on […]
A left-behind tree is our term for woodland pasture trees that are left behind as lone individuals when farmland is urbanized. You can help us find them. Woodland pastures are part of the original presettlement vegetation of the Bluegrass. As some areas, especially in Fayette County, were urbanized, most of the trees of the woodland pastures were […]