Consider those towering red cedars

City Manager Joe Gaa told me the other day how many ash trees we're going to lose at the Chariton Cemetery before this emerald ash borer disaster is said and done --- an alarming number that I can't recall precisely.

That's caused me to pay more attention to the trees that still are flourishing out there, including quite a number of towering eastern red cedars (juniperus virginiana) that as a rule do not get that much attention --- they don't turn pretty colors in the fall, their foliage is not as widely appreciated as that of other conifers and their shapes, while interesting, tend not to be especially symmetrical.

We actually know where these cedars came from and when they were planted. The Chariton Herald of Feb. 15, 1900, reported that "John W. Mauk has sold his entire stock of cedar trees --- some three hundred --- to Dr. Stanton for use in the cemetery."

John and his wife, Alice, farmed two miles west of Chariton and he had been advertising red cedars for sale for some years --- grown "from seed" on his farm. In addition to use as specimen trees, cedars were popular for fencerows --- and fence posts. John's cedars have long outlived him --- he was laid to rest not far from several of them during 1926.

Trees, you see, have history, too.

Obviously, there are not 300 cedar trees in the cemetery now --- but some of Dr. Stanton's less well thought out and overcrowded plantings were selectively cleared during the 1920s when the cemetery board was working with a landscape architect to develop a planting plan for the grounds --- the sort of plan that's lacking now.

The red cedar is the only evergreen native to this section of Iowa and it is extraordinarily hardy, so much so that it's sometimes considered "weedy" because birds eat its fruit then spread its seeds and they germinate rapidly along roadsides and in untended and uncultivated areas.

Cedars grow at a moderate rate --- our Chariton Cemetery examples are about 120 years old. Elsewhere in the state, specimen trees in excess of 450 years old have been found.

I'm not suggesting that we plant more red cedars in the cemetery as all those beautiful ash trees fall, only that we appreciate the ones we've got.