Sunday, May 27, 2007

African mahogany II

This is another view of my little six-year old African mahogany described in the previous post. Out of the 15 seedlings, this one is by far the largest and healthiest. The other four planted nearby at the entrance to the Bosque are getting larger every year but they are bent over, maybe from looking for light, and they developed a disease/condition that creates large black blobs on the trunk of the trees. One tree actually broke off last year at about five meters, I assume from the stress of being bent over too far. It's now developing new life at the top of the standing trunk and may end up being a beautiful tree yet. Only one of the ten African mahogany trees planted along the trails survived. I discovered the hard way that young trees can't survive in the shade of older trees. This was my experience with all the species of trees I've planted along the Bosque trail system. An anonymous visitor once made the comment that "trees need to grow up together." That may be true.

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