Carolinian forest

Close your eyes and do a bit of time traveling forward, five months from today. It's May 24th 2004, and looking outside your window you see dogwoods and redbuds and wild crabapple in bloom.

These are Carolinian trees, they belong to the forest, but they also adapt well to life in the garden.

Ecologist Gerry Waldron makes a persuasive case for considering these choice natives for yard duty in his new book, Trees of the Carolinian Forest (Boston Mills Press).

There are 90,000 tree species known to science, Waldron writes about a select group of 73 found in the Carolinian zone of Ontario that sweeps from Windsor to just north of Toronto. Some of these trees sound like they just jumped out of a Tennessee Williams play, the wahoo, cucumbertree, pignut hickory and Kentucky coffeetree. These trees native as far south as Tennessee and the Carolinas, reach their northern limit here.

Many of them are tenderly beautiful like the eastern redbud, Cercis canadensis. If there is a finer tree for spring flowers, I do not know what it is. The tiny redbud flowers line the trees dark branches like silk covered buttons. After the electric haze of flowering, leaves shaped like Valentines emerge. The redbud is small enough for a small yard; group it with a pagoda dogwood, Cornus alternifolia and underplant it with native witch-hazel and wildflowers and you have paid tribute to the Carolinian forest.

Waldron, a consulting ecologist, is out there fighting the good fight. He works with land trusts, writes vision documents, works on restoring Carolinian forest ecosystems.

There are just remnants of the Carolinian forest left in Ontario and that's not enough. It surprised me then to hear the optimism and laughter in Waldron's voice.

"I was born with the happy gene," Waldron says. "I keep active and positive, and I get to watch trees grow."

And trees make good companions according to Waldron. "Everyone should have a favorite tree, they have personalities." The Kentucky coffeetree he calls fun, the cucumbertree is "pregnant with character".

His own garden in Amherstburg is dotted with exotics along with the natives, "I'm not a dyed-in-the world purist," admits Waldron. But he is powerfully persuasive when writing about the need to use native plants.

"The strongest argument for the use of native plants is provided by the need to preserve biodiversity." The genes are unique he writes, they need to be conserved, and each organism is a thread in the fabric of the ecosystem.

So even in a challenging backyard in Toronto, Carolinian species can find a worthy home.

"Many of the oaks do well in the city. The red maple is a good, refined tree, the serviceberries are now widely planted," says Waldron.

The goal for gardeners who want to plant Carolinian species is to find trees and shrubs from local sources. A redbud shipped in from the southern US will not be as tough as native trees grown from seed collected locally.

There's a resource list in Waldron's book as well as detailed information on what conditions various species like to grow in.

In my own garden though, I have found a welcome adaptability among some of the Carolinian natives.

In fast draining, sandy soil, serviceberry, Amelanchier, cherry birch, Betula lenta and dwarf Chinquapin oak, Quercus muehlenbergii are growing gamely and beautifully.

Ultimately these treasures from the forest are the most rewarding plants I have in the garden. Gerry Waldron, man-at-large in the woods agrees.

After our interview, he sent me a postscript called A Salute to Mothers.

"Don't you think an interest in nature is innate? So let me put in a good word here for those saintly mothers that let us drag in all manner of creepy crawlies and never got upset when the garter snake went AWOL or the praying mantis eggs hatched releasing hordes of beady-eyed predators into their home. A read of any bio from Darwin's to E.O. Wilson to Farley Mowat usually reveals one of these unsung heroines discretely in the background."

A lovely thought from a happy crusader working to keep the fabric of the forest intact.