permaculture

["Kevin Topek" <ktopek@houston.rr.com>]

Dear Classmates (Gene & Kirby), Keith too,

I feel transported back to Glenn Rose, Texas. My son is grown and married
and my daughter is off to college this fall. We are now all old! On to
hackberries.
1. I do not think hackberries fix nitrogen, though I may be wrong.
Hackberries are in the Elm family, Ulmaceae, and are of the genus Celtis.
2. They produce sweet edible berries loved by wildlife, especially migrating
birds. Native Americans made a meal of the berries in the fall.
3. Hackberries are considered "trash" trees here in Texas, even though they
are very useful.
4. Hackberries are usually a secondary successional species and are able to
withstand allelopathic chemicals from primary successional species. A good
example is hackberries growing under junipers (a nurse tree, but toxic to
most species) in the eroded Texas Hill Country. (Remember Bill M. made this
observation in class!)
Thoughts
1. My wife, Mindy, feels a guild of Hackberry and Fig only works when the
hackberry is young. She'd remove the mature hackberry and start a new
sapling.
2. Figs do best with some shade, at least here in south Texas. Since there
can be intense sun for 8-12 hours in the summer, the fig likes a break. Figs
will thrive with full sun exposure though as Keith recommends.
3. Figs in Houston, TX have relatively short production lives, 20 years or
so, so I would make cuttings and start new fig trees regardless.
4. Hackberries do not usually make it past 100 years, and here in the city,
50 years is considered old. They tend to break at the limbs or along the
trunk and do damage to structures, so proximity to a structure is a
consideration.
My recommendation
Leave the two trees alone since you enjoy them. Make more cuttings of the
fig and plant them where there is more sun. Kirby stated both
recommendations first. If the hackberry threatens a structure either prune
it judiciously or take it down. Life is short, enjoy what grows around you,
especially if it is unplanned!

Kevin Topek


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gene Monaco" <efmonaco@comcast.net>
To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 9:32 PM
Subject: [permaculture] To Cut or Not to Cut


>
> Hey folks,
> I have this great fig tree that my Grandmother brought to NYC from Sicily
90
> years ago.  My father and mother have a cutting of it growing on the
eastern
> shore of Maryland, and now I have it growing (again by cutting) in east
> Tennessee.  I love this tree.
> After learning about N2 fixers and guilds, I let this volunteer hackberry,
> which I understand is a N2 fixer, grow up next to it.  Hackberries grow
like
> crazy around here, and I like to munch the berries in late fall when they
> get crunchy.  A perfect guild so far.  I made a mulched bed around the
area
> and planted some vegetables last spring along with some sage and some
> flowers, figuring that the hackberry is fertilizing everything.
> My wonderful daughter, with a new degree in environmental engineering and
a
> minor in biology, has informed me that I'm a fool because the hackberry is
> getting too big and will shade the fig--it is to the south of it; less
than
> 5 feet.  She thinks the fig will do better getting the direct full sun,
and
> it doesn't need the hackberry or at least, it's not worth the trade off.
> So I'm agonizing about it.  She might be right.  My process at this point
is
> to observe and communicate with the tree people and see what they tell me
to
> do, but I wanted to run it by the geniuses on this list first, especially
> Kevin Topeck, to see if there are any insights.
> What say ye?
> -Gene Monaco
>
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