Cabin Notes: the plant criminal

For the saplings.

We watered the local pine trees again this week. Across from our house, down the hill on town-owned land, there are maybe 20 pine trees—not one taller than my waist. They were planted some five years ago, and growth has been slow. They’ll be covered by snow in just three months’ time, and with the drought, we’re lucky they’re alive at all. But luck is fickle, so the town sought guardians to water the precious pines. And because these pines are below our house, and we are generally considered both useful people and plant people, they became our friends to mind.

The goal with these pines wasn’t just beautification or revegetation, but to build a snow drift for the diciest hill in our town. Nothing happens when you slide off this hill. There’s no cliff, no trees. You just… don’t make it up the hill. You just skid and slide while the uphill neighbors watch, sighing while they put on their boots to help. The drift that blows over the road narrows it to one hapless lane, often drifted itself. The trees, in a decade or so, should help.

But in order for the trees to help, the neighbors need to help the trees. Such is life.

I write often about being a custodian of things, and this town makes it very easy to know what to take care of. You do the local shed, you handle the trails, you weed the garden, and you, yes you, you water the trees. This clear task assignment means you get to experience the slower joys—the one inch growth of new needles; the mice and voles who’ve made clear homes under the spreading branches, all skittering as you come with the hose; and the catch of the eye as you drive past going, “hey I think that one had a growth spurt.”

This is all lost if you’re not the tree minder, the pine guardian. Then, you rarely notice them amongst the tall grasses. Instead, for most of the year, you notice the drift. It won’t be until a decade later that you’ll get home more readily, you’ll get stuck fewer times, you’ll drive up the hill without a second thought, that maybe on your third thought you’ll think, “must be those pine trees.”

Those pine trees that someone watered for ten summers. Of course here, there are only 30 or so people live atop the hill, so they get to know who waters the pines. Most places, we have no idea who handles these things.

In LA, I have a dear friend who is a plant criminal. Without pause and without permission, she buys saplings and then plants them in forgotten city soil beds. She does this for shade, for animals, for beautification, and for sheer fun. People walk along the city blocks and only the most astute, the most regular will pause to think, “huh, new tree.” And it’s a very select few who think, “I wonder who planted it?”

Maybe only one would think, “I wonder who protects it?”

Because she does. People take down the supports she puts in. They dig up plants. They leave trash. And out she goes to mind her floral menagerie.

You will not be surprised to hear I find this terribly romantic. She doesn’t get credit. She won’t win any city awards. She’s not selling branded fertilizer on TikTok through this. She is their minder because she chooses to be.

What are you minding this week?