Milford Trees, Inc. Membership Application

Milford Trees, Inc. promotes the proper planting, maintenance and replacement of public trees. Our ongoing projects are maintaining the tree nursery on Gulf Pond, educating the public about the importance of trees, hosting guest speaker events, continually updating the Milford Tree Inventory Program and managing the Milford Legacy Arboretum Memorial Tree Program.

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Categories of Membership

Family ($40) Lifetime ($250)
Individual ($25) Corporate ($500)
Youth (18 & under) ($5) Memorial Tree Sponsor ($500)

(Milford Trees, Inc. is a non-profit organization. Membership fee may be tax deductible.)

Mail to: Milford Trees, Inc.
28 South Street
Milford, CT 06460

Thank you for your contribution and support!

The Resident

By Barbara Currier Bell

I am alive. I go through the processes essential to life. I come into being. I eat, sleep, eliminate, reproduce, grow old, and die. I struggle through setbacks, success. I adapt.
I make my energy directly from the sun, a feat impossible for animals. In doing so, I use carbon dioxide as a basic fuel and end up with oxygen as a waste product, the opposite of what happens in mammals. I don’t try to maintain my body heat against changing external conditions; instead, my temperature matches the weather. I don’t have a brain, but I have sensors that respond to temperature, light, and moisture. When certain signals arrive, I shut down, much as a fish does, under the ice, or a bear, hibernating, or a cicada, during its long siesta. In response to other signals, I awake.
I can survey far distances, because I’m a giant, typically the height of a nine-story building, but sometimes as big as a 36-floor skyscraper. It’s true I start small, but I grow a bit every year, with some fat years, some lean. Unlike mammals, I don’t have growth spurts when I’m young and then stop changing size. I grow constantly in three dimensions: a little wider, along my entire length; voluminously, at my deepest point; and taller, up high.
I don’t have blood, but I do have bodily fluids. I suck gallons of water from around my ankles, and sweat it out through my scalp. I don’t have many unique organs with specialized functions, but I do have a few distinct tissue types that perform generalized functions to keep me strong. I can get sick from diseases, injury, starvation, and mistreatment, just like every other living being, but I also have ways to fight back, much like an animal’s immune system. The result of this toughness, plus my frequent, unhurried rests, is that I’m long-lived. I can stick around for several centuries, and some distant cousins of mine have even lasted for millenia.
I live in Milford. A few of my numerous children will no doubt leave my side and make their homes far away, but I’ll remain in this sandy alluvial soil with all the members of my diverse society, many thousands of us. Why should I want to travel? I can move around as much as I like right here, twisting my body, bending it high or low, grasping my supports more firmly, positioning myself to catch the sun. I have compatriots standing near, with a whole network of ecologically-related species, large and small, to sustain us.
I guess you could say I’m happy. Most of what goes on around me is a blur. I can’t focus on it any more than an eye can follow the movement of a hummingbird’s wings. I have no way to register pain. But I can respond to resonances from the deep earth’s core. And, at times, wrapped in sky, I can experience something like an embrace.

Book Review:

Why (another reason) I read Michael Dirr

By Steve Wing

Michael Dirr, author of the hefty and definitive Manual of Woody Landscape Plants (1187 pages, 4 lbs, 6 oz.), since 1975 has been the standard desk reference on trees, shrubs, and vines for Landscape Architects, nurserymen, and others in the so-called green industry. It is available in hardcover, paperback, and CD ROM formats. The book retails (Millane’s Nursery and Twombly’s have it) for over $100 dollars and is worth every penny in my opinion. That it is in its Fifth or Sixth Edition suggests that this is not my opinion alone. Mr. Dirr, a professor at the University of Georgia, has distilled his encyclopedic knowledge into a species by species exposition of the characteristics, cultural requirements, habit, range, propagation techniques, usefulness in the landscape, etc. It is organized alphabetically by botanical name, Abelia to Ziziphus and is loaded with references to other sources for more information, in case he didn’t satisfy your curiosity. Sounds dry, doesn’t it? Well, read on and read closely, dear reader. A sampling of insights and observations from the botanical mind of Professor Dirr:
1) An aside, buried in the discussion of Acer rubrum: “Since the 1990 edition I have assessed the peculiar sexual preferences of this species—actually quite kinky for in a given population of seedlings staminate, pistillate, monoecious, and monoecious with hermaphrodite (bisexual) flowers occur; . . .”
2) On Platanus occidentalis, our troubled Sycamore trees: “If native to an area, do not remove the tree(s); however, do not plant it. . . .the tree is simply too large and is constantly dropping leaves, twigs and fruits. . .the tree was truly at its ‘best’ when anthracnose kept it devoid of leaves until mid to late June.”
3) On Pitch Pine, Pinus rigida: “ I have seen it all over Cape Cod in the sandiest of soils. In Maine, it grows on Cadillac Mountain, out of rock crevices. . .It will never make a commercial item, but is still
a worthy member of earth’s biodiversity, kind of like an old slipper.”
Mr. Dirr’s humanity and joy illuminate his intrepid scholarship; I know I am not the only one who has laughed out loud plowing through the vast fields of information laid out in The Manual of Woody Landscape Plants.

Apple Trees of Kazakhstan

By Regine Vitale

In the foothills of Kazakhstan, apple trees grow that experts believe to be direct descendants of the first apple trees on earth. They were never cultivated and are neither prone to disease nor insect damage. Travelers carried apples from this area to places all over the world where new trees were grown, cultivated, grafted, propagated and cross pollinated.
While the wild apple trees of Kazakhstan grew undisturbed for thousands of years, they developed a strong genetic arsenal of mechanisms against diseases. The apple trees in the rest of the world, however, are threatened by a number of diseases like scab, mildew and fire blight and attacked by insects including the codling moth, apple-maggot, aphids, scales and mites.
Every year many commercial growers spray their orchards as many as ten times a year. Their South African colleagues use chemicals even more frequently. Since the number of health conscious consumers rise constantly, orchard owners are looking for chemically free solutions and hope that the answers can be found in the strong gene pool of Kazakhstan's apple trees. Scientists hope to use these genes for the development of a stronger, more resistant seedling rootstock.
To prove this theory will take time and consumers have to be patient. It will take at least 25 years before these new varieties can be marketed.

Sassafras

FEATURED TREE OF THE MONTH

By Steve Wing

Sassafras leavesOctober is the month to have Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) on one’s mind; its fall color is outstanding. A native tree, common from Maine to Florida and Texas, and west to Michigan, the Sassafras has many noteworthy and noticeable attributes. The name is apparently derived from a Native American word.
The leaves, while variable, are famously ‘mitten shaped’, with one blunt lobe making a ‘thumb’ and the rest, the hand. Another common form of the leaves is a more symmetrical three lobed version, with the middle lobe being the largest. Some leaves are entire—without lobes; fortunately for tree identifiers, all these variations can be found on the same branch of the same tree. The twigs and young branches of the tree are green and smooth, similar to young blueberry stems. With age they develop a rougher texture and a tan color. The bark of the mature trees is a deeply fissured, corky bark, also striking. The blossoms are yellow-green to pink and delicately star-shaped; easily noted if you’re looking, but not showy and easily missed by the casual observer. The fruit of the trees is a small drupe (a cherry is a drupe) which I have never seen. According to Michael Dirr, the fruit are rapidly consumed by birds and may never ‘hit the ground’. All parts of the tree, leaves, roots, bark and woody parts, are infused with aromatic oils of pinae and camphor; Sassafras tea and the like are folk, brewed from roots or bark, are folk remedies for ‘what ails you’ of long standing. Sassafras bark was an early export from North America to Europe in the colonial era. But it is the fall color of the foliage which makes the tree a star. On the same tree you will see a full palette of color from greens, yellows, oranges, and reds. Also, I have noticed early color changes in isolated leaves of sassafras as early as August, giving a little advanced notice of the impending change in the season.
The tree has fleshy, not fibrous, roots, which makes transplanting it from the wild difficult to impossible. In nature, new trees are produced by suckering off the roots of an established tree, forming colonies. In suburbia, trees will often form linear colonies along fence lines between neighboring properties. In the landscape industry, Sassafras is not widely used, a fact attributable to the high mortality rate.
Sassafras drupeThe young plants are frequently seen on the woodland floor, or in colonizing thickets along the edge of the woods. Juvenile trees, growing in the open, develop a pyramidal shape. With age, the trees produce massive trunks, and a ruggedly asymmetrical array of branches supporting a broadly oval crown.
In Milford, we have several impressive Sassafras trees. On Gunn Street, between Ford Street and West Main Street, there are several on the property of former Mayor Kozlowski (31 Gunn Street). One of these was measured and determined to be the fifth largest in the state. One on Bridgeport Avenue in front of Bridges (949 Bridgeport Ave.) is of similar stature, but has suffered greatly at the hands of the utility company’s pruning to protect lines running though its crown.
In Milford, we have several impressive Sassafras trees. On Gunn Street, between ford Street and West Main Street, there are several on the property of former Mayor Kozlowski (31 Gunn Street). One of these was measured and determined to be the fifth largest in the state. One of Bridgeport Avenue in front of Bridges (949 Bridgeport Ave.) is of similar stature, but has suffered greatly at the hands of the utility company's pruning to protect lines running through its crown.