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Roger Rabbits with |
It was laughing at me, mocking me, as I swept up the leaves and seeds and crap…yet again, again, again. “Godawful thing – begone!”. ‘It’ being a silver birch tree – white, peeling bark and drooping branches. Remarkable in its ordinariness. Then the breeze conspired with the tree – fanning the weeping foliage into a graceful dance and dumping a fresh shower of seeds, leaves and muck at my feet. Exactly where I had just swept! “#**#!”
They say in springtime, the heart regrows hope. Uh-huh! It means a surge in pollen-sponsored allergies and respiratory hassles. So not all beer and skittles. And I resume a months’ long clean-up after a silver birch tree which I have dubbed ‘Putin’ – short, out of control, invasive and a nuisance to everyone around it.
A silver birch has cones or bracts which, when dry, produce little seeds, like a fleur-de-lys or stylised lily or iris. Makes them sound cute and lovely. They are, but they aren’t. I have learned to hate them.
Thousands of them, could be millions across the season. Just 2-3mm wide, perfectly aero-dynamic, and scattered afar by the wind to settle and sprout.
So why do most of them seem to stop short at my front door just 10m away from the tree? If it’s to drive me nuts, it’s working.
Little private places
And there’s the problem. They don’t stop at the front door. They penetrate and infiltrate when it should be impossible to do so. You will find them drizzled on the butter, in your salad, you’re picking them out of your teeth, they’re scattered over the stairs and furniture, in the car pockets, in your clothes; and in little private places where I’m sure nature never intended them to be. And they will be on your pillow and in your bed clothes when you go to bed. You cannot escape them. They are the stuff of a Hitchcock thriller – in this case ‘Psycho Silver Birch’ in which Janet Leigh gets attacked in the shower by an invasion of evil seeds.
Sweeping, vacuuming and willing them away just doesn’t work. The suggestion was to put fly screens on windows and doors. Great idea – just throw money at it!
I threatened the tree with ring barking, a chainsaw, or something really nasty called Hacking and Squirting (H&S) – anything that would bring about its end.
It was a friend with a nasty streak who recommended H&S-ing – cutting a downward wedge into the trunk and applying a deadly herbicide. Drastic stuff. The friend reckoned it might be therapeutic, cathartic. I feel better just thinking about it.
Pine tree in a urinal
It was an interesting suggestion considering he is a dendrophile, a tree hugger.
“I love all trees,” he declared gazing at the ghastly rogue silver birch. Bit of a stretch I thought – there are 3,400,000,000,000 trees in the world – more than 400 times more trees than people. That’s a lot of trees. A lot of love.
“I have stood to attention and saluted General Sherman,” boasted Friend. General Sherman, the Californian giant sequoia, the world’s largest tree by volume, a circumference of 31m – one-third of a rugby pitch. The General’s a big boy.
But what about my silver birch? The leaves and the seeds? “I have prostrated myself before Hyperion.” Friend droned on. “Named for the father of the sun of course.” Of course. Hyperion’s a coastal redwood. And at 116m, it’s nine Bayhopper buses high.
“I have hugged Tāne Mahuta [TM].” Not an all-enveloping hug though, because TM has a girth of nearly 16m.
“And,” he added, “I have shaken hands with a pine tree.”
Really? Why? How? “It was at a urinal in the Albion Hotel in Auckland a few years ago when THE pine tree, Colin Meads, walked in. Even rugby gods take a mortal pee.”
Pine Tree was at a function, while Friend was just having a function. Pine Tree said something profound like: ‘Gidday mate?’ and shook Friend’s hand. Well, crushed his hand. Huge, strong hands that man. Probably hardened on some South African skull in a rugby scrum.
Now, about my silver birch tree seeds. They’re still playing mind games with me. Just when I think I’m rid of them, more flutter in…again, still!
Pass me an axe
Friend put aside his tree hugging tendencies and became the lumberjack. An axe he suggested. Would make me feel good, but it could have consequences. Unfortunate ones. You are not allowed to kill trees that aren’t yours, so no axe, no hacking and squirting. But you can trim branches and roots with Putin-ish imperialist habits that encroach over your borders.
But for anyone else out there with an irrational and deep-seated loathing of silver birch trees, you have an empathiser. Perhaps we should form a support group?
Now the silver birch is smugly says: “Keep sweeping buddy because I will be casting seeds and leaves and mess, long after you’re gone”. Okay tree – I have had my moan. I will live learn to live with you.