Our Little Urban Arboretum, a Diary

By Charlotte Schneider

An adventure into the plant world through the eyes of a forester. Neighboring plants, sunlight and the beautiful animals that fly through the air, rain water, soil and the wonderful animals that make dirt their home, are all a living part of this book.

This is a personal story of growth through the plant life. Dealing with t primary progressive multiple sclerosis for over 30 years, is demanding on time, energy, and attitude. The plants provide a refuge. Their fascinating seasonal changes, and their abilities to adapt to the challenges of weather are encouraging.

Discover the hummingbird moths, a hawk in her backyard 2 blocks from the city limits, plants befriending each other, or antagonizing each other. Look into the prehistory of our plant world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: May 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504325547

Charlotte Schneider

Embrace change. At 33 she graduated B.S. in Forest Management. She experienced 23 years as one of the first women foresters becoming a Certified Arborist in 1998. She retired, volunteered as a Master Gardener and purchased her family home. On <1/3 acre she has ~60 plant Families. A Missouri Forester >35 years.

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Copyright © 2016 Charlotte Schneider.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-2553-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-2554-7 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 05/26/2016

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Contents

Dedication

List of Illustrationsi

Acknowledgmentsi

Foreword

Part 1

Introducing Our Arboretum

How Do You Start Your Arboretum

Why on Earth Would You Want an Arboretum

Part 2

2007-2008 In the Beginning

2009 The Year of the Okra

2010 Fennel to the Rescue

2011 In the Year of the Clover

2012 Too Hot and Too Dry

2013 The Doves and the Hawks

2014 Year of Recovery

Part 3

The Plant Community

The Flowers of Spring

The Flowers of Summer

The Colors of Autumn

The Shades of Winter

It Is All Good

Part 4

Plants I Wish I Had Room For

Plants Not Wanted!

Conclusion? Not in Our Lifetime!

Cover Explanation

The book cover shows scanned pictures of leaves or leaflets from our arboretum plants. This is their book, it is fitting that they be on the cover. My caregivers collected the leaves and groups of leaves from plants in the front and back of the house. These are the plants’ common names. The leaf that looks like marijuana is a chaste tree.

Front Yard

butterfly bush, sweet pepperbush, Japanese Pieris, 7 sons flower tree, aromatic sumac, spicebush, tiger eye staghorn sumac, fringe tree, fan columbine, cotoneaster, Virginia sweetspire, winterthur viburnum, bittersweet vine, false cypress, rose mallow, magnolia, coast leucothoe, beautyberry, Anthony Waterer spirea

Back Yard

pawpaw, false indigo, buttonbush, hazelnut, arrowwood viburnum, Virginia sweetspire, redbud, aromatic sumac, bald cypress, river birch, lilacs, peony, columbine, flowering almond, red mulberry, elderberry, roughleaf dogwood, trumpet creeper vine

Dedication

Missing you. My parents lived through World War 1 as children. They were old enough and wise enough to emigrate from Germany before World War 2. They left family behind, but surrounded themselves with others who had to leave their homeland.

Born into a farm family my father was aware of land and chose a good home in a new development, Shrewsbury. My mother grew up in a small railroad town. Her father was familiar with the woods and mushrooms. They met and married here in Saint Louis. They probably would not agree with the wild nature of their home site, but they would have loved the butterflies and flowers. Though deceased, their spirits feel strong here.

dove.jpg

The Holy Spirit is alive in your life. Listen to Him.

List of Illustrations

The Red Rose

Zoysia Grass With Weeds

Front of House/Wall

Our New Hill, January 2008

Blushing Pink Knockout Roses

Spent Buttonbush Flower

Our Hill, August 2011

Queen Of The Prairie

Our Path, May 2012

Renee With Pruning Saw

Our Backyard, My Forest Home

Monarch Butterfly

Praying Mantis.

Fothergilla In Bloom

Cardinal Admiring Roses

Spring Group1 Pictures

Spring Group2 Pictures

Rose Mallow, Year One

Summer Group Pictures

Blueberry Shrub In Color

Autumn Group Pictures

Squirrel On Branch

Winter Group Pictures

Bald Cypress Leaf

Spider Web

It Is All Good Group Pictures

Goldfinch In Vine

Bradford Pear’s Inner Child

Charlotte Checking Plants

Acknowledgments

I need first to acknowledge the maker of this Arboretum, and of course it is God. He maintains it with sunshine and rain. Under His guiding hand we have all the elements needed: worms and beneficial insects to keep the bad guys under control, soil bacteria and microorganisms to recycle the elements, hormones to grow and to produce buds, flowers, and fruits.

I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to all the people who have helped keep me out of a nursing home. Renee has been my personal assistant and nutritional advocate and full time caregiver for the last 3+ years. Trish and the Shrewsbury 911 rescued me many times in the five years prior to that.

Thank you to Jim who put together the group pictures. Thank you to Christine, Lisa, Renee, Robin and other caregivers who took many fine pictures with my camera. Thank you to Lucy who, with prayer, drew the dove. Thank you all my many caregivers now and in the future.

Thank you to all the people who have helped me put this Arboretum together and maintain it. First and foremost I want to thank Renee, who single handedly embraced my overgrown aromatic sumacs. Justine guided me at the start until we disagreed over weeds, Bob tackled the butterfly bushes and knockout rose thorns to the ground. The staff and fellow Master Gardeners at the Kemper Center, Missouri Botanical Garden, gave me an appreciation of plants smaller than 60’ tall trees.

Foreword

On the desk in my office I have a small 3x4 wooden plaque dated 1975 with a faded photo of trees at sunset and words across the top stating:

Today I have grown taller from walking with the trees.

My first encounter with Charlotte was in the early 1980’s when we were both foresters for the Missouri Department of Conservation. We attended a day long workshop on lumber grading at a saw mill in southeast Missouri and Charlotte rode with me to attend the workshop. During our drive time I learned from Charlotte about her love of walking with the trees and the impact they had on her life. She worked in the woods, lived in the woods and played in the woods. Following a career path with many bumps, pit falls and setbacks (read her book Female Forester Forever) she has taken that love of plants and brought it into a small residential lot to establish Our Little Urban Arboretum.

In 1983 Charlotte was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis impacting her ability to move forward at a gentle pace, but that didn’t stop her from continuing on and trying to get the most out of every day and every project. After Charlotte moved back to the city and was working on the St. Louis Forest District, she asked to help with a Forestry Adventure Program that another forester Rob Emmett and I had developed for the boy scouts. The program included talks along with hands on activities using cross cut saws, hand axes, pruning saws, draw knives and a scale model saw mill. In the late afternoon, after the program was over, the three of us were walking down the paved road to our vehicles with Charlotte in the middle. As we walked, Charlotte’s muscles were not cooperating for her and she would all of a sudden slam into me then into Rob. I said Charlotte, are you OK? She just grinned and said boy was that fun, those boys had a great time and we taught them a lot about how wonderful trees are. Sure I’m OK.

In 2007, when Charlotte bought her house from her mother’s estate, I had stopped by to see how she was doing. Of course we talked about her south facing hot back yard, the concrete walled planting areas with overgrown ugly shrubs in the front and the lack of access for her to be able to plant, weed and prune from her scooter. Not really believing that she would be able to accomplish those things from her scooter, I told her that first we needed to get safe access from the house for her. She had an electric lift at the rear door, in the event of an emergency accompanied by a power failure, she could not exit. So she said then I need a ramped front walk so that it will double as access and a place to work on my garden from the scooter, and so it happened.

Charlotte has developed Our Little Urban Arboretum on a residential lot in Shrewsbury, Missouri, that is less than 1/3 acre in size. This arboretum does not compete with the Missouri Botanical Garden, but it does contain 60 different woody plants, 25 herbals/perennials and 15 flowers/weeds. Of course, those numbers will change as some plants die or she finds new plants to try. This book will help you with ideas on how to develop your own arboretum based on your soils, light levels, environmental conditions and your favorite plants.

Bruce Vawter, Consulting Forester

Part 1

Introducing Our Arboretum

It has been a 7 year journey beginning when I purchased my family home from the estate after my mother’s death. The first year needed making this property fully functional for me, a disabled lady on a scooter. We had major things to accomplish, the back yard was unbearably hot facing south with grass and a couple medium sized trees and a deck with no cover. The front consisted of concrete steps leading to an open porch, which had