Tree Man Mike
Are all arborists named Mike? It seems so.
My tree guy in Connecticut was Mike from Bartlett Tree Service and I adored him. He came twice a year to inspect our property and he'd spend an hour talking landscape plants with me, admiring what I was growing, really engaging and even asking my advice on some of the uncommon specimens I had. He taught me to prune. We discussed "acquisitions", trees we each wanted to grow some day and where we had seen beautiful ones.
My tree guy here in Santa Fe is named Mike also. I don't have a mini arboretum going here like I did back east, just some mature Scots pines, a huge cottonwood and several aspens. A couple baby trees I planted when we first arrived. And some overgrown shrubs and a gangly New Mexican privet.
The overgrown shrubs need attention and the pines, cottonwood and aspens are struggling after years of drought, lack of soil fertility and the previous owner's neglect.
Tree Man Mike from Coates Tree Service came to our house last week on a bitterly cold day. Amid swirling snowflakes we walked around and looked at the trees here and he put together a program to fertilize the pines, prune the privets and cottonwood, pump some iron into the aspens, and treat the Rose of Sharon for the aphids it is plagued with. I do enjoy talking about trees and shrubs, even dormant ones in the depth of winter.
In another life lived over again, I would have liked to be an arborist. Instead, I got a liberal arts degree at a school where there was a robust forestry science department -- Syracuse University, back in the 1960s. Forestry is now part of the state university system, SUNY, focused on environmental studies. My roommate married a stumpie (that's what we called forestry students back then) but I never had any interest in the forestry department in those days, and barely knew an oak from a maple.
But it probably would have been a stretch to become an arborist. I think at that time there were no women in the forestry school. The discipline even now is mostly about operating heavy pruning power equipment, getting certified in high canopy tree climbing, and doing a lot of tree removal work, probably not what I could have managed. Being an arborist can be very physically challenging work. It's not just going around looking at nice trees.
And besides, I can't be an arborist; my name's not Mike.
My tree guy in Connecticut was Mike from Bartlett Tree Service and I adored him. He came twice a year to inspect our property and he'd spend an hour talking landscape plants with me, admiring what I was growing, really engaging and even asking my advice on some of the uncommon specimens I had. He taught me to prune. We discussed "acquisitions", trees we each wanted to grow some day and where we had seen beautiful ones.
My tree guy here in Santa Fe is named Mike also. I don't have a mini arboretum going here like I did back east, just some mature Scots pines, a huge cottonwood and several aspens. A couple baby trees I planted when we first arrived. And some overgrown shrubs and a gangly New Mexican privet.
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| Brown tips all over this Scots pine in the front yard indicate nutrient deficiency, not drought. I fertilized last year with Jobes spikes and it greened up, but it needs more. |
The overgrown shrubs need attention and the pines, cottonwood and aspens are struggling after years of drought, lack of soil fertility and the previous owner's neglect.
Tree Man Mike from Coates Tree Service came to our house last week on a bitterly cold day. Amid swirling snowflakes we walked around and looked at the trees here and he put together a program to fertilize the pines, prune the privets and cottonwood, pump some iron into the aspens, and treat the Rose of Sharon for the aphids it is plagued with. I do enjoy talking about trees and shrubs, even dormant ones in the depth of winter.
In another life lived over again, I would have liked to be an arborist. Instead, I got a liberal arts degree at a school where there was a robust forestry science department -- Syracuse University, back in the 1960s. Forestry is now part of the state university system, SUNY, focused on environmental studies. My roommate married a stumpie (that's what we called forestry students back then) but I never had any interest in the forestry department in those days, and barely knew an oak from a maple.
But it probably would have been a stretch to become an arborist. I think at that time there were no women in the forestry school. The discipline even now is mostly about operating heavy pruning power equipment, getting certified in high canopy tree climbing, and doing a lot of tree removal work, probably not what I could have managed. Being an arborist can be very physically challenging work. It's not just going around looking at nice trees.
And besides, I can't be an arborist; my name's not Mike.
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