JOY WITHIN BEECH
After four decades of adding and subtracting trees in his landscape, this gardener is ready to announce a favorite
MY HALF-ACRE YARD was pretty much a blank slate when I purchased my home in 1976. It never had a good soil base, and much of what it did have was made up of dredgings from a nearby saltwater harbor. I still occasionally find shells when I dig down a foot or two to plant something. Parts of the yard are still somewhat sandy despite a heroic attempt over decades to amend the soil, particularly in the formerly large vegetable garden, with grass clippings, sawdust, leaves, coffee grounds, tea bags, well-rotted compost, assorted manures, seaweed and more. If nothing else, I’ve developed a very healthy respect for Mother Nature’s ability to produce the kind of topsoil needed to sustain agriculture worldwide.
Only a handful of emaciated native trees were left by the builder, none of which I particularly liked, but I nursed them along anyway to prevent myself from having a completely featureless property with no shade or wind protection to speak of. Today just one of the original trees remains, an old chokecherry, itself being choked by English ivy, whose introduction I am responsible for and will always regret. The chokecherry and a couple of its family members allowed the plants and grass I slowly introduced to the yard to survive blazing summer sun and get a foothold. That tree will remain here as long as it wants to, with my gratitude for that past service.
Many other trees have come and gone. White pine, various fruiting cherries, plums, apples, pears, persimmons, magnolias, Norway maples, birches, dogwood, spruce, mimosa and fir. And many have taken their places. I like and have liked almost all of them. But I can unreservedly say that I love my weeping European beech, now a lovely and stately specimen, which was given to me by my wife, Abby, for our 15th wedding anniversary nearly 25 years ago.
THE WEEPING BEECH
I had always wanted a weeping European beech, having been inspired by numerous gorgeous examples on nearby Aquidneck Island, which is one of several regional American epicenters for these magnificent trees. Fagus sylvatica ‘Pendula’ is certainly a favorite landscape feature at so many of the Newport mansions. You also see them on the way to the neighbor
GREG COPPA is a writer, traveler and life-long plant enthusiast who gardens in Rhode Island.
ing playgrounds of the well-heeled, such as polo grounds and vineyards.
Fagus sylvatica itself occurs naturally in central and southern Europe, ranging as far as Norway to the north and Greece to the east. The genus name comes from the Greek
phegos, whose numerous translated meanings include “edible.” The species name is from the Latin
sylvatica, loosely translated to mean “from the woods.” The reference is no doubt to the nuts associated with the tree, beechnuts, which were used and stockpiled by the ancient native peoples who had access to them. The nutritious nuts are occasionally employed today as chicken feed or pressed to obtain a flavorful oil, which the French sometimes use to dress salads. One account reports that a quart of beechnut oil can be extracted from only 10 pounds of nuts.
The European beech is distinct from the American beech, F. grandifolia, but they both provided material for tool handles, furniture, flooring and boat construction. The Danish have even been known to carve fine-looking tobacco pipes out of the versatile native wood. The lumber produced from both these species is straight grained, hard and stable, with the coloration of the European beech somewhat warmer hued and more suitable for decorative projects. My father-in-law loved to use beech obtained in his beloved Adirondacks for firewood, because it split cleanly and burned hot, producing beautiful coals that warmed his grandchildren who loved to sit by the fireplace with him on cold North Country winter nights.
Non-weeping European beech can live in the wild for two centuries, and much longer if trained as pollards. The latter are trees that are pruned back periodically so that they do not reach their natural
mature height but remain always rich with new growth. The style is much more popular in Europe than it is in North America.
I do not crave beechnuts, nor have I any intention of making any beechwood products. I just love the way a majestic Fagus sylvatica ‘Pendula’ looks, even though no two look exactly alike. And my children and grandchildren enjoy the enclosed space under a mature tree, a natural part of its growth habit. That space can accommodate quite a gang for a summertime birthday party and at times it has provided me with a leaf-shrouded outdoor office running 10 degrees cooler than the open air.
The cultivar ‘Pendula’ has not been around forever, at least as far as we know. The mutation originated in England in 1836 and it was presented by Scottish botanist John Claudius Loudon, who, incidentally, was the first to use the term “arboretum” in reference to a collection of different trees assembled for admiration and study. The details of Loudon’s fortuitous beech cultivar discovery either were not recorded, or they have been well hidden from the likes of yours truly. (And I’ve expended far too much time not satisfying my curiosity about it.)
But subsequent to the initial discovery, the historical record is clear. All European weeping beech in America today are derived from one purchased by Samuel Parsons in Belgium in 1846. Parsons, who planted much of Manhattan’s Central Park, later established a nursery in Queens, N.Y., in 1868. One of his weeping beech trees was selected as a certified New York City landmark in 1966, by which time it had grown to be 65 feet tall with a trunk circumference of some 14 feet and an estimated spread of 85 feet. Many
other Parson trees were disseminated across America to people who loved them as much as I do and for the same reasons.
In the 1960s it was noticed that Parson’s landmark tree was in declining health. Heroic efforts to save it proved unsuccessful and sadly the tree succumbed to old age in 1998. Now what I am about to tell you does not happen often, but so revered was this particular tree that in December of that year the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation held a funeral for it. And quite imaginatively, in my opinion, the department made segments of the tree available for sculpture projects and the making of park benches. Not many trees are paid such a tribute, but maybe more should be!
All beech trees have a tendency to attract what some people call, perhaps too harshly, graffiti artists. The gray bark tends to be smooth when it doesn’t actually resemble elephant skin, and it scars up easily with a penknife or nail, so that initials may be carved on the tree—often surrounded by a heart. My tree bears the names of all my children and grandchildren on its trunk. When the out-of-state little ones come to visit, they always like to confirm their family-tree status. Some lovers of trees fear that a beech tree will suffer ill consequences from such scarring, but I have never seen it, and I’ve seen a lot of initialed beech trees in my lifetime. Like anything else, if done in moderation, this type of etching presents no great stress to these trees and in a way binds etchers and etched in a uniquely special way. It would not surprise me if some of the people whose names appear on my tree’s trunk eventually plant beech trees themselves someday.
Beech trees are not particularly fussy about soil, though they may have a slight preference for calcareous ones—so those oyster and clamshells I come across in my yard may actually benefit my tree. And they thrive when exposed to full sunlight. In general beech trees are healthy, though there have been reports of an emerging threat called beech leaf disease (BLD), first seen in Ohio in 2012. It’s possibly caused by a foliar feeding nematode (worm), though scientists are still investigating the affliction and possible remedies. You may want to consult county agents to see if BLD is a threat to trees in your area.
Propagating weeping beech is not as easy as some accounts make it sound. In fact, I have generally found an inverse relationship between trees that we really like and the ability to easily root them. The usual advice is to take six- to ten-inch cuttings of new wood, strip off the bottom leaves, treat with rooting hormone, stick in various concoctions of potting soil, mist or place potted subject in plastic bag, yada, yada, yada. I claim no success. I have also read that beech branches that touch the ground will often self-root. This I have not seen, and I probably have a hundred branches comprising new wood, old wood and both touching the ground at any time. And I have even actively tried layering some of these branches over the years. Commercially, ‘Pendula’ scions are grafted onto straight Fagus sylvatica rootstock. Nurseries are in business to make money, so I suggest that that’s probably the easiest and most successful way to propagate this magnificent tree, which once established can be counted on to grow a foot or two a year, up and out.
You’ve all heard before that the best time to plant any tree is 10 years ago. The second-best time is as soon as possible. So if you have the room and think Fagus sylvatica ‘Pendula’ would make a nice addition to your property, make haste and get one in the ground. In a few years, you will be able to spend summers at the beech in your own back yard.