The Arborist: Cutting the Edge & Resuscitating Our Sycamore

This whole project began with the idea of bringing attention to the historical tree, lighting it up to bring attention to it, so it could be fixed somehow. It was our hope that people would again begin to take pride in the tree. There were thoughts about whether the tree itself was beyond repair and needed to be uprooted and replanted. This began a process of discovery…

So when you begin to explore you never know what to expect of your findings. And when it has come to the Historic Sycamore, we have met many people who have given us a bunch of little clues as to what is going on with the Tree and what needs to be done to repair it.

The first clue about the issue the tree was facing came from Mike Lopez our Parks and Recreation Arborist or "Tree Doctor" in Santa Ana. He described the way that Sycamore Trees in California are non-native plants and how many trees were hurting due to the drought. He told us that a beetle likes to burrow its way into the bark and the serious trouble starts when the beetle's eggs begin hatching and their wood-boring larvae go to work on the inside, the holes allow for air to get into the tree and this slowly kills the tree.

CLUE NO. 1: I soon found that the beetle he was referring to was a Pacific flatheaded borer beetles. It is a bronze, coppery-winged insect.

CLUE NO. 2: came on another evening Ryan was told that actually the reason the beetle bores into the tree in the first place is because the tree is dry and does not have enough water making it vulnerable to the beetle. When I researched this diagnosis further, I found this also to be true, the presence of the beetle around the Sycamore indicates that the sycamore is under stress. This told us that the adult beetles, and the partial defoliation they may cause, aren't the real problem and this was fully confirmed when the rain came.

CLUE NO. 3: In February a series intense rain, swept through California, soon afterwards our tree began to sprout all kinds of big beautiful light green leaves, telling us that the lack of water was a real part of the problem. We were surprised to find the tree seemed to be dead at the top but had compensated by growing out the side which was full now of new green leaves.

On a journey to Long Beach, Ryan and I stopped by the local Guanabana Shop to get Ice Cream and somehow got onto the topic of the work we were doing with the tree with the Shop keeper Estevan. As it goes we soon found out that his degree before coming to the states was in plant science. He told us of the ancient practice beginning with the origins of agriculture of grafting a tree.

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​SOLUTION NO. 1: Grafting is defined as a natural or deliberate fusion of plant parts allowing for vascular continuity this means the part of the plant that water flows through is connected with the part of the dying plant in which water ought to flow to establish a connection between them this results in a genetically composite two plant parts to merge until they grow together and the organism begins to functions as single plant.
 
Estevan described how he knew the art well and would come to Santa Ana to assist us with the tree and deliberately graft the living part of the tree with the part up top that was no longer alive to bring life back into it.  I got extremely excited at this point and wanted to make sure the whole production was videotaped.
 
It seemed brilliant and fantastical to me, this old art form that reminded me of Druids and those who could truly understand plants and their needs. I imagined the spectacle of the whole process and became very excited. I was imagining the interest and  popularity of the Reality Television Series called "Out of the Wild" where people are riveted by this popular Discovery Channel show for its painstaking lessons on real survival in the wild. I also thought how beautiful it would be not to throw away the tree but to revive it since we live in such a throw away culture and nature in essence is something that we really cannot throw away.  So the science of mending is a beautiful one indeed.

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