Berry Ramble

Dogwood berries seem to be covering the big tree shading the front deck. They are as red as I've ever seen them. Southeasterners know dogwood trees make red berries in the Fall, so why is this a big deal? Most Southeasterners also know about dogwood blight, one on the many many diseases killing signature trees in the South.

Killing off our Southern legacy is a time honored tradition.

Chestnuts were the first to go. Chestnut wood is amazing stuff. Beautiful, hard, resistant to rot and insects...not to fungus though. Chestnut wood was so good, that some lumbermen were disappointed that it didn't grow back fast enough after they cut it all down. They wanted "more"...someone always does. As the American Chestnut was timbered into scarcity, the Chinese Chestnut was brought into America to make up for it. Riding along on the Chinese tree was a fungus that spread to every American Chestnut tree...they mostly all died.

Rumor has it that there are a few blight resistant trees out there, but so far, an American Chestnut recovery is a distant goal.

Reality is that the dominant tree of the Great Smoky Mountains is gone. A testament to the carelessness and shortsightedness of greed. I have seen a picture of an American Chestnut tree that was fifteen feet in diameter. Now, we usually see the sprouts on the old surviving roots and that's all. The bark cracks open and they die after a while.

The spruce trees in the Smokies had a big die off because of an insect brought here by nurserymen. And the wooly adelgid is in the process of killing all the hemlocks. Oak trees have their own killing fungus known as "Sudden Oak Death" disease. And the asian tiger beetle is destroying American hardwoods in some areas and spreading.

Now the dogwood is dying.

It is a slow process. I have been working on the one next to my deck, which has the double whammy of the fungus and the house being too close. Dogwoods require acidity and concrete foundations are not good for that. So far, adding acidity to the soil and fertilizing with tree stakes seems to be helping. This year, three is strong enough to produce lots of berries, even though the leaves are smaller than they should be. I enjoy dogwood trees and their fall colors, starting with the berries... then the leaves turn fall colorful, and then, for a while before the birds eat them, there are just the berries left on a bare tree.

For now, the dogwood tree looks like it will make it another year, holding up the suet feeder and the hummingbird bottle. If it ever dies, I plan to make something out of the wood. It's the least I could do.

Peace,

Steve