It’s May, and this northern city is finally greening. The buildings, the built world, are the same, but the infrastructure of trees, dozing during the winter months, is rousing. Spring has moved northward on its own mysterious, rhythmic, and dependable calendar. It is a sweet timetable, whether it is a green veil being drawn upward over the map or a gray white veil being drawn away.
Our city has a landmark tree program created, it says, “to locate, document and compile a record of remarkable trees within the city of St. Paul.” The program appears to be dormant now (little pun there). An online map lists 2021 selections with no updates, and only a hard-to-sort passing reference to 2022.
I am always interested in trees, remarkable or ordinary, and also in people, remarkable or ordinary. I note here that the two honored Landmark Trees of 2021 are close to my downtown neighborhood and are in the very same yard. See photos at the website below, then take a walk, or bike, to 169 Goodrich Ave. Bring binoculars.
Joe Landsberger is a consummate citizen of the West 7th neighborhood, a designer and supporter of neighborhood parks, author of an encyclopedic history of the area, and the maker of a lovely out of the way corner of our town.
In 2021, Joe nominated a nearby tulip tree as a landmark. At that time the tree was recorded as 40 feet tall, with a crown spread of 20 feet. Its DBH (diameter at breast height) was 13 inches.
If that was in 2021, then it has had four years of furious growth! It seems counterintuitive that it is hard to spot because it is so much bigger. And yet!
Orient by the nine-pane window at 169 Goodrich. The tulip tree’s trunk is just to the left of that window. Trace it upward with your eyes. The tulip tree’s canopy does not leaf out until …well, I don’t know how high that is. It is showing its blossoms largely to the sky; use your binocs. Forty years ago, that tulip tree was a small thing on sale at the annual plant sale at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. Joe picked it up there . . . “it was a sprout in a pot!” . . . and brought it home. And just look at it now.
The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum Plant sale is this weekend, May 9 and 10, and their online catalog lists a tulip tree for sale. Tickets to the sale are free! The catalog calls it “a striking deciduous tree renowned for its unique tulip-shaped flowers and leaves. Its grandeur and ornamental qualities make it a standout in the landscape.” Maybe you can do as Joe did and, somewhere around 2065, register your tree as a St. Paul landmark.
Joe has, he says, “a passion for marginally hardy plants.” His yards are lovely, and mature; he is fond of weeping trees. (His other nomination, a Temple Juniper, is in the same yard, closer to the sidewalk. The name indicates that it was once found on temple or other sacred grounds in Japan.) See his website aginggardens.com and take a look at a loveliness made over decades, with labor and the eye of an artist.
Joe is the official designator of the two landmarks, but his favorite tree, he says, is the enormous hackberry at the corner of Goodrich and the alley, pictured here. Its mature height is 75 to 100 feet. So is its mature spread. Look up while you’re there. That hackberry is really something else.
It’s spring, and those trees and yards are awake. Isn’t the world just filled with landmarks? Everywhere and every time we pause to look.
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See the landmark tree list, with Joe’s trees at the top, at https://www.stpaul.gov/departments/parks-and-recreation/natural-resources/forestry/landmark-tree-program/landmark-tree. Thanks to the city of St. Paul Urban Forester Supervisor Rachel Jongeward. Also see https://arb.umn.edu/events/plantsale. Thanks to Lynette Kalsnes, Public Relations Strategist at Arb. And www.aginggardens.com.
Love urban trees? The city has a Tree Steward program. You can help! See https://www.stpaul.gov/departments/parks-and-recreation/natural-resources/forestry/tree-stewards-program
Photo by the author.