Editor's Note Fall 26 - The Trumpet Vine

I am told our house was built on an old Christmas tree farm, Our home, framed by green pines, drew us to make our life here. In our front yard, two pines stood side by side about five feet apart. When the trees began to die, we cut them down. My wife decided to leave about 5 feet of stump, hoping to do something with them one day, maybe a totem? We found trumpet vines on sale at a local nursery. We planted them at the base of the trunk to train up the stumps. The vines took some years to establish, but eventually they grew.

It was as if God dropped a bit of beauty into our front yard for us to wonder at. The vines grew strong up the trees' trunks. When the vines reached the tops of the trunks, they circled, anchored themselves, and continued to grow upward. The vines were now many, reaching toward the sun, bursting out in all directions, forming a crown above each stump. Soon the tendrils reached out to one another, forming a bridge; separate crowns but together.

Each summer it blooms with orange-red trumpets from June to late August. The flowers are prolific and gracious in their outpouring. We began to think of it as a trumpet vine tree towering 10 to 12 feet above the yard. Standing beneath the tree mid-summer, we heard the busy hum of the bees as they went in and out of the flowers. Hummingbirds flew to it, and we believe it was a favorite spot in their travels. House wrens found shelter and a place to nest deep within the crowns. The tree gave nourishment and shelter.

The tree framed the important moments in our family life: the first days at school, prom, friends visiting, and moments before leaving for college. If the moment was picture-worthy the trumpet tree was there in the background.

This year, my wife, Theresa, pointed out the bases of the stumps were beginning to rot. Inevitable; time taking its toll, nature wearing away. We tried to think of ways to prop up the stumps: anchors, pipes, scaffolding, or filling them with cement, as at Council Oak. None of the ideas seemed to hold the solution. The activities of life and work led to inaction.

In July, one of those big storms blew through. The kind that took down large old trees all over Michiana. The wind caught the crown and knocked the stumps over. We could have given up, walked away- just a shame. But the roots are strong and worthy—some things you must fix. When God drops a little beauty in your life, you care for it.

I pruned the crowns back hard and hauled them off to Organic Resources. I cut away the stumps, and the base vines came away easily from the rotting wood. The main sections of each vine remained intact.

It became clear the vines could be rescued by securing them to 4x4 posts anchored deeply with cement. A crossbeam provides greater structural stability and additional support for the vines to grow on. To this structure, we secured what was left of my gangly pruning.

The pruning was ugly, but we had hope. We had faith in the roots.

In only a few weeks, the vines began to sprout new life, grabbing the posts. Now, here at the beginning of September, you can barely see the 4x4 structure; it is so covered with vine.

Next year we expect to welcome back the bees and hummingbirds. We look for the trumpet vine tree to flower in full glory again.

This year we published four essays exploring love. You can find them at panoplymichiana.com. This note may be is a little of story of love? I will let you decide.

Thank you for reading PAN-O-PLY.

Dan Breen