Blog readers diligent enough to check the weather in central Tuscany will know we've been inundated with rain... for about five months now. October of 2024 broke records with 20 cm of water falling on our land, and, while November brought some reprieve, December added 9 cm and January and February another 8 cm each. Now we're on track to have March match October (11 cm have fallen since March 1st)! Our land is as muddy as I've ever seen it and locals are claiming this much rainfall is a 30-year event. Outdoor work is slow and messy. So, in parallel with the upgrades underway to Poggiosole's photovoltaic system and laundry and linens room, my Swedish friend Tomas has joined me for 10 days of rainy day work (Swedes know how to work in the rain). Between downpours we've spread organic fertilizer around the bases of all our lower grove trees and since then we've been clearing some of the thorny brush, Spanish broom and climbing plants that have been harrassing olive trees on the periphery of our groves for years. This is strenuous work that's easy to put off, but when rain limits mowing (wet grass mows poorly) and pruning (fresh cuts in wet weather invite fungal infections) it's one of the few tasks left on the list. Besides, freeing trees feels good.
Case in point is the headline image above. The bifurcated trunk behind the wheelbarrow belongs to an olive tree on the eastern edge of our upper grove, but you wouldn't know it from the foliage. Virtually all the visible leaves belong to a Hedera climbing plant (commonly known in English as ivy) which looks to be in the process of smothering its host. Now depending on the species, ivy isn't usually invasive, and the prevailing botanical opinion is that it isn't directly harmful to the tree it climbs on (in the way that fungi or parasitic plants like mistletoe can be), but when the organic mass of the ivy starts to approach that of its "host" tree and overtakes most of the tree's crown or canopy, there's little doubt that it is competing with the tree for sunlight and soil nutrients. The fact that virtually none of the olive tree's canopy was visible when Tomas went to work on the above tangle suggests that the olive tree beneath it wasn't
having the best time of its life, and certainly wasn't going to be adding many olives to any upcoming harvest. The trunks of this ivy were clustered in bundles, and some were as thick as the olive tree's branches. Taken together, they were nearly half the diameter of the host tree's trunk, their cross-section revealing a dense wood texture complete with growth rings. I was struck by the size and weight of the pieces we were pulling off, which had to first be cut with a handsaw and then pried off with a crowbar. The tree just sat there of course, but maybe if you listened carefully, you might have heard it sighing, perhaps stretching, portions of it seeing light for the first time in many years.
Postscript, March 16: Yesterday Tomas, apparently encouraged by his qualified success in freeing the ivy-smothered olive pictured up top (qualified because there wasn't much left of the tree when he was done) summoned Thor-like strength and proceeded to fell and drag an improbable number of small and mid-sized linden, hackberry, laurel, and invasive Spanish broom from the eastern perimeter of our upper grove. Growing amidst all that vegetation were tangles of finger-thick brambles with thorns capable of piercing leather gardening gloves. I helped with some of the clean-up, which continued today. As evening fell
yesterday, I made a quick video of that "liberated" edge of grove. Around 10 "new" olive trees, previously immersed in plants that rendered them nearly unapproachable (and certainly unharvestable), now stand proudly on the strip of land that then pitches steeply downward towards our lower grove below. It's an odd sight for me to see these mature, if somewhat traumatized trees suddenly standing in a neat row where before stood a morass of broom, saplings and thickets too dense to decipher. And once the clean-up is complete, we will have a lot more firewood. 🔥
Comments