A bucket of fertilizer rests against one of our planted hemlock trees.
Just this week I was fertilizing planted hemlocks at field sites in a an experiment designed to answer some questions regarding how best to get healthy hemlocks back in the forest. Trees were planted at the tail end of 2013. Some were treated with insecticides protecting them from the adelgid and some were not. Some were fertilized, others were not. A combination of all treatments was used on some seedlings, then others had nothing done to them. We are taking annual measurements in an effort to find out what treatments grow the healthiest trees.
A birds nest propped in the young, but sturdy branches of a hemlock seedling.
I was pleasantly reminded that species other than adelgids use our hemlock trees.
Eastern tent caterpillar crawling on a hemlock branch.
Please meet Malacosoma americanum, the eastern tent caterpillar. You have probably noticed the silk tents that these critters construct on many of the broad-leaved trees this time of year.
For The Future
Planting trees early in spring,
we make a place for birds to sing
in time to come. How do we know?
They are singing here now.
There is no other guarantee
that singing will ever be
-Wendell Berry
