My father spent his career as an attorney and civil servant working in the courts system in Washington. When he retired to our farm in the Northern Neck, he left all of that behind him. He would give no legal advice, although he was willing to give me all kinds of other advice, albeit all to my benefit.
He filled the gap that ensued when he left the legal arena by plunging into the world of horticulture. In those pre-internet days, when nurseries sent out printed catalogs in late winter and early spring each year, he made certain that he would get as many of them as he could, all of which he stacked by his chair, to be read quite diligently each evening. He was never much of an enthusiast for television, thinking it a waste of time, when he could be reading plant catalogs and books on gardening.
In his own modest way, sitting in our living room, he became well acquainted with countless horticultural subjects. That was in the evenings, and during the daytime he set out preparing the soil, planting the seeds and specimens he had ordered, and basically having a jolly good time in the yard, the fields and the woods.
With some nursery owners he developed a level of intense correspondence, asking about their offerings, providing his comments, and most importantly for them, placing his orders. In that era, the concept of invasive species had not dawned in the public square and companies offered species that frequently were at cross purposes with the goal of successful gardening. Today, we would term them invasives. In other instances, they were so-called hybrids, plants that proved to be biological nuisances.
Those were not his concerns. Rather, he wanted to experiment with virtually every plant he could find. He also was not worried about spacing or selecting the right spot for the right plant. He would say that he would “heel in” his plants temporarily for them to be moved to permanent locations later. In numerous cases, the “heeling” itself became permanent, and after he died, I undertook moving plants from crowded conditions to wider landscapes where they could “breathe.”
In the spring of 1978, he became mesmerized with one nursery’s introduction of the hybrid poplar as promoted in its catalog and he went overboard in ordering some for our yard and field. Soon, they were becoming ubiquitous, but they had a high mortality rate that in retrospect was beneficial in that they did not have to be cut down later. In addition, although they were named “hybrid,” they reproduced prolifically.
Over the years that they have grown on our farm, I have found them to be worthless. They are constantly dropping large dead branches, shooting off sucker limbs from the bases of their trunks and quite simply not worth the work required to keep them clean. They also produce large surface roots that make mowing near them impossible except with a weed whacker.
When cut down, the trunks are hollow and the wood is of no value as firewood. I suppose I could admit that the fallen leaves contribute to the mulch bin, but that is no compensation for the nuisance of having them on the property.
One of the worst offenders of this gaggle of scrub trees died this past year. It had been planted between a fine Japanese maple that is almost 70 years old and a copse of stately yews that I rooted many years ago.
Over Thanksgiving weekend, the next generation undertook to remove the dead hulk. With the tractor, he pushed it over, carefully avoiding the neighboring plantings, and down it came, one garden nuisance gone forever, but we still have several more to go.
My father probably would agree that the hybrid poplars had not been a good choice for our property and he almost certainly would be delighted that their removal opened up space for new horticultural experiments.
