Potluck

Five years ago I stopped by a tree sale at Hoyt Arboretum near Portland.  I'm a complete sucker for plant and tree sales.  It was very late summer, so the bloom was off plant sales, so to speak.  I wasn't looking for anything in particular, but it was the Hoyt Arboretum. How could I pass that up?   So I drove the winding road through acres of glorious trees and grasses.  Hills and valleys unfolded to show every color and texture of green.  Walking paths laced through the tree plantings, streams sparkled in the low spots.  Near the office I found the sale.  It was almost the last day of the sale and there wasn't much left, but  I  did discover a motley assortment of twigs in one-gallon pots on a picnic table.  Most were labeled "close out".  If you know plant sales, you know that this is just the place to find the treasures.  But at Hoyt, you must be willing to do a little homework and maybe take a chance.   Homework is needed because the Hoyt people, being arborists, put the scientific name on what's on offer.   If you're lucky, there will be a common name too, but don't count on it.  Chance, because late in the season, the label may have long ago fallen off the container.  Then it's pot luck unless you are really good at recognizing twigs.

So I browsed the table, seeing unimpressive little sticks, some with a few leaves on them, most for  $10.00 or thereabouts.  But luck was with me in the guise of a Hoyt volunteer. The elderly man wandered up quietly, clearly happy to talk trees if I was interested.   I mentioned that I lived on a lake outlet near the ocean so that whatever I might find would need to be tolerant of wet feet most of the year, and possibly wet knees some of the year.  And wind.

"This would be a lovely choice," he said.  He pulled forward a particularly barren and uninteresting twig. I raised my eyebrows and looked at him.
"River birch.  Not native, but grows well here and loves wet feet.  Needs them actually.  Has wonderful rust-colored bark that peels away like paper.  Grows fast.  Good, bright yellow color in the fall."  All this future in this little twig.  Hmmm. Not native.  I really try to keep my yard mostly native, but that's another story.  How could I not buy this, especially for just $10??

And he was so right.  My little birch is now close to twenty feet tall.  It's slim, double-trunked, elegant.  Lithe  enough to dance in the wind, which can be considerable, and not break.   It lives on the very edge of the water so that wet feet are a given.  Brilliant, small chartreuse green leaves in the spring, on-fire golden in the fall.  And all year long, that papery bark. 

So I guess I could draw a metaphor about having faith in the potential of the small and dubious looking, whether it be a plant or a person, but  I'll leave that for another day.  I'm going out to admire my tree.