A View From My Garden

During our last storm I stood in the main corridor of the hospital, IV pump by my side, and watched the wind blow. Just outside, framed by the corridor window, grows a European white birch (Betula pendula) of size and proportions I have seldom seen. It is truly a perfectly beautiful tree.

The IV pump? Simply the result of an overly stubborn nature which managed to turn a minor infection into a major pneumonic crisis. Thus a stay in our hospital and an attachment to an IV pump following me in unphased devotion wherever I went. Thanks to the skilled people at our hospital and to miraculous antibiotics, I am home now and on the mend. A hard lesson learned.

But on that dark late afternoon as I watched the white birch dance with the wind, I was reminded again of how little intercession on our part it takes to make a happy and healthy plant. This European import is a good example.

I don't know who planted it or when. I asked around a bit but so far have no answers. I also cannot orient myself in the new hospital so that I can say for sure what its relationship to the old core buildings was. But however it happened, the tree was planted where it stands, a number of years ago judging by its size, and for better or worse, there it has grown into a nearly perfect specimen; the sort of tree gardeners and landscapers dream about.

Now, the new buildings have grown up around it; suddenly changing its habitat radically and requiring in maturity that it make some new adaptations. If I study a map of the new construction, I see that it has always been sheltered from the northeast, and that the major change in the white birch's world is that it is now partially shaded to the southwest by the large and tall new main entrance. During the time I was there, there was also a pipeline being laid beside it, to serve the new whirlpool in Physical Therapy. A small bobcat and another small tractor were doing the work, even in the blowing rain and snow, and seemed to practice careful consideration for the tree, as nearly as possible.

You see, they are our victims, really, these imported and nursery plants of all kinds. They are not allowed to make any sort of decisions as to where or under what conditions they will grow. We put them there, they are expected to do well, and when they do very well, as has this dancing black and white poem to what a European white birch should be, then we tend to take them for granted. Some of the very most important decisions we make in this life are concerned with where trees are planted.

Did some of the same caring hospital staff who took such good care of me, who provided me with just the exact conditions I needed for my continued welfare, did they also think of the welfare of the white birch? It stood outside the Emergency Department and Radiology before, now it graces Physical Therapy and the wing of administrative offices. It would seem it has been promoted. Except there is this question about that southwest exposure; so important to our northern plants; providing that last ounce of sunlight when the dreary long winters are upon us. Underground there is the new pipeline and a matter of torn roots to replace and to mend.

Still, the birch dances with the wind, and shakes off the driving sleet and rain with a practiced shrug. Without a shred of self pity, with no complaint, it takes the next slice of life it has been handed and goes to work on the necessary adaptations. A new pipeline, a new two-story building, it is all the same to the birch. And so it dances. And so must I.