Thursday, March 9, 2017

Grove of Giants

I've posted many times before about Woodlands Cemetery, my local Victorian-era cemetery, walking destination and general happy place.

I went there this morning after a trip to the post office, both because it was spring (again, for what, maybe the third time in three weeks?) and because I knew there had been some changes.

A few weeks ago on Facebook, the cemetery announced that the Grove of Giants, which was a group of enormous English elm trees toward the back of the cemetery (and the actual last standing grove of English elms in the U.S.) had become infected with Dutch Elm disease.  They had attempted to treat the trees, but the infection had spread and the trees were becoming hazardous.

The sad decision was that the trees had to be cut down.  The second part of the decision (which I liked) was that they would leave as much of the trunk as would be safe, both as a haven for wildlife - of which the cemetery has much - and as a tribute to the massive presence those trees had on the grounds.

The remaining trunks have to be at least ten to fifteen feet high.  If you don't look straight up, you can almost pretend the trees are still there, except that the shade is gone.

Seeing the trunks scattered among the gravestones, they seem almost more monument than the man-made ones beneath.

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