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Confession of a Tree Killer
One Christmas vacation I was paid to wander the then young, but now cut up for firewood, pecan groves near Picacho Peak with wood handled loppers in one hand and a spray can of black tree wound sealer in the other. Another time with pruning shears in hand I navigated the dormant grape vines that once grew at the University of Arizona's Campbell Avenue farm. Mature adults trusted me with their trees and vines. In short, I had pruning experience. I had knowledge and an air of confidence soon to be shattered by a splendid, in need of pruning apricot tree in my neighbor's yard. I grew up with that tree, I plucked succulent fruit from the branches and fought off birds that tried to eat the juicy ripe golden fruit. I loved that tree and all the fruit it produced year after year while I matured into the tree pruner I thought I had become. I was asked, if not begged, to prune the tree. Knowledgeable and in search of more pruning experience I accepted the task. I read about pruning fruit trees and I studied diagrams and was determined to prune the tree into a somewhat bowl shaped masterpiece that would allow plenty of air circulation, let in light and leave behind the fruiting wood that would produce next year's crop of apricots. I gathered my bow saw, hand shears, mighty loppers and a can of black, tar like sealing paint (still in vogue at that time) on a Saturday to tackle the mighty apricot. Within an hour or so my masterpiece was done. A small, yet manageable pile of tree limbs littered the ground. I was confident the tree was a better structure and would produce larger, better quality fruit by June. Spring came along and the tree flowered to set forth fruit. The first sign of trouble showed up when a single limb looked withered and dead. My arrogance suggested I missed that limb when I was pruning. Wrong. The tree went into a quick decline with limb after limb dying until the whole tree suffered the same fate. The owner cut the tree down leaving only a three forked limb at the base to hold a round metal pan for feeding the birds. A once handsome, productive tree was dead and gone. The neighbor tried to tell me it wasn't my fault. The tree was old. It had lived a full productive life and not to worry about it. But I couldn't. I killed the tree as if I'd taken a green thriving limb and injected it with poison. How do I know that? I just do. I also know that in spite of what I'd learned about transmitting diseases between plants, I'd failed to sterilize the pruning equipment by dipping it in a bleach solution. I'm guilty, I confess and I've lived with the knowledge for years. The apricot tree fiasco haunts me to this day. Twice I've tried to grow apricot trees on my own property in hopes of recapturing the sweet memory of my youth and the succulent fruit a healthy apricot tree can produce. I've pruned the trees to get the desired shape and each time, shortly after that, the trees went into quick decline, their dead, leafless forms in the landscape as grim reminders of my tree pruning youth. I write this confession in hopes that some other young, inexperienced tree pruner will think twice before a tree, vine, or shrub is put under the saw or shear. --The Tree Killer |
journalism
that would one day give me a degree in agricultural communications. I'd taken writing
courses that dealt with reporting the news with emphasis on who, what, when, where and
why, and I had the basics of my ag. education with classes in soil science, plant
pathology, entomology, and a list of forgotten others.