New Street Trees

For several months now I’ve wanted to participate in Lucy’s virtual street plant gathering. But I’ve yet to find any spring growth in urban habitat here at 7200 ft elevation, even though early wildflowers are blooming in the prairies nearby. Then last week, some trees appeared along the new street under construction near my house.

Yes, I’m stretching the definition. These are hardly street plants. They’re not the urban waifs, tough pioneers, under-appreciated photosynthesizers that I admire so much. In fact, these are pampered plants. A landscaping contractor carefully planted them, and installed an irrigation system. But until true street plants appear, these trees will have to do. I took advantage of the weekend (no workers) to meet them.

Tools of the trade.

Each tree has one of these.

I found five kinds—two evergreen conifers and three deciduous hardwoods. I didn’t recognize the long-needled pine; it’s not one of our natives unless it’s a 2-needled cultivar of ponderosa (if such a thing exists). The spruce probably are native—they’re common landscaping trees here.

Pine

Spruce

Among the deciduous trees are maples of some kind. Or so I think, based on oppositely-arranged branchlets and what look like tattered remnants of samaras (keys).

Maple?

Several trees had early leaves and were blooming—crab apple? It's another of our common landscaping trees.

Crab apple?

The fifth species is pretty much a mystery, except that the bark has lenticels (forgot to take a photo)—possibly birch or alder? The buds are reddish—what does that mean?

Mystery tree for now.

Appropriate to the habitat—riparian/light-industrial ecotone—two honking Canada geese flew overhead as I assessed the latest progress in road construction. The street is due for completion this summer. We’re looking forward to it, it's been badly needed for a long time.

Street Plants: Tumbleweeds Come to Town

Plant on a mission.

Tumbleweeds are iconic of the American West, where they tumble and roll for miles across open country, get trapped for awhile in a draw or fence, and then travel again when a strong blast of wind sets them free. The archetypal cowboy finds comfort in tumbleweeds, seeing in them kindred spirits, and companions for his own restless wandering.

But not me. I see them as plants on a mission. I live on the west edge of town, so whenever the wind blows hard, tumbleweeds come flying in from places where last year they managed to get established and grow—like railroad beds, ditches along the highway, and especially the disturbed fields of the Wyoming Territorial Prison (tourist attraction). Being annals, they died last fall. But it's in death that tumbleweeds become “active.”

Breaking from their roots, they race along, driven by the wind, each one dropping thousands of seeds as it rolls. They pile up along my fences, behind the trash and recycle containers, under the car, in tree canopies, and especially at the end of the hedge which must be directly in their path. But I don't mind. They're fascinating—impressively well adapted.

Tumbleweeds coat the west side of a six-foot-tall hedge.

“Tumbleweed” is a strategy, not a specific plant. We have three common ones: Russian thistle, tumble mustard, and kochia (Salsola kali, Sisymbrium altissimum, Kochia scoparia). Thousands of tumbleweeds fly into town every season; multiply this by thousands of seeds each and it’s guaranteed that even in urban environments a good number of seeds will land on patches of bare dirt, from tiny to large. Some will germinate, and a few will grow into plants with seeds to drop as they themselves roll on. So tumbleweeds are street plants too, not just icons of the West. They’re tough opportunists able to thrive where little else grows … scrappy waifs generally overlooked (just as well; most people have little use for them) and hardly ever appreciated.

Kochia during the growing season, in a crack between street and curb.

Russian thistle thrives on its own dirt pile.

Many tumbleweeds are still rooted, so there will continue be a steady supply.

Russian thistle and tumble mustard.

Lucy of Loose and Leafy in Halifax has kindly taken up the street plant cause again, encouraging plant lovers to look closely in places we usually ignore. For this month’s virtual gathering, I’ve been looking for green street plants. But no luck, even with our weird warm winter. However I did find lots of tumbleweeds. No surprise—we’ve had such strong winds lately, with average speeds in the 30s (mph) and gusts in the 40s and 50s.

One even reached the protected yard off the sunroom.

About once a month (this time of year) I put on heavy gloves, gather up the tumbleweeds in my yard, take them across the street to the abandoned railroad right-of-way, and set them free so that they can continue on their merry way.

Cleaned out from hedge.

Off to Nebraska!