On the Arrival of a Parkway Plane Tree
It’s here! Our new tree!
In my last blog post, I wrote about the eventual demise of the Bradford pear trees that marked the strip of land between the street and sidewalk in front of our home, which I had initially loved. Since then I have been waiting for the city to bring and install a new tree for our front yard, and today it came after me gazing longingly out of the window for the city landscapers every day.
The tree I picked? A London Plane Tree. When the arborist rattled off the types of trees he had (instead of the cacophonous “hackberry” tree he was originally going to give us), I chose this one based off the romantic-sounding name. I had a vague awareness of the plane trees found along the avenues of Provence, possibly from an old Rick Steves episode.
For me, the name is significant because London was the first place I ever flew to as an adult without my parents.
Not only that, but it is found in some of the most beautiful cities in the world: throughout London, of course, but also along the Champs-Élysées in Paris, and in New York City, too. It was a favorite of Napoleon’s to plant along roadways. It recalls urban natural elegance.
My favorite painter, Vincent van Gogh, painted plane trees in at least two compositions:
The tree won’t flower in spring, but it does have unique grey bark which peels and shows a mottling of cream and dove colors. The leaves are wide and maple-like, and it should turn a nice yellowish in the fall. Yellow, Vincent’s favorite color.
I am currently reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, in which she describes the “artist brain” as “our creative, holistic brain. It thinks in patterns and shadings. It sees a fall forest and thinks, ‘Wow! Leaf bouquet! Pretty!’ . . . Artist brain is associative and freewheeling. It makes new connections, yoking together images to invoke meaning” (13).
All these associations make me enthusiastic for the patterns and shadings this new tree will bring to my sight each day, a little pillar of a creative muse that should grow tall in time.
Tell me, do you have a significant tree in your life?