Tumbleweeds and Sequoias
The first plant I remember wasn’t beautiful, nothing that you would ever want to grow in your garden, or even alive.
It was an invasive weed brought to the U.S. by accident in a shipment of Ukrainian flax seed to South Dakota in 1877, or so goes the story you often hear. I’m talking about the plant that is now emblematic of the high plains, the tumbleweed. It was 1958 and we were living in Monahans, Texas. Our family moved every 2 years or so because my father, a civil engineer, was working to build power plants to keep up with the rapid growth in electricity demand of post-World War II baby-boom America.
My parents would have preferred to have lived in Midland (where oil company executives lived) or even Odessa (where oil roughnecks lived) but there was a housing shortage and we weren’t staying long, so they had to settle for a shotgun shack in less desirable Monahans. Years later a high school friend of mine, also from the area, described it as so barren that people often mistook the three trees in their front yard for a roadside park and they would have to regularly chase away the picnickers. My mother used to say if it didn’t have a thorn on it, it wouldn’t grow in Monahans.
Anyway back to tumbleweeds and my first plant memory. In the fall, when the winds would blow, dead tumbleweeds would break free of their roots and roll across the plains to spread their seeds. They would come to rest against anything that stopped them, such as fence or the side of a house. So one of my first plant memories was watching my father setting the tumbleweeds free to continue rolling before they dropped seeds against the side of our house.
Fortunately, my parents (neither from Texas) knew there was more to be seen in the southwest than endless horizons, baseball-sized hail, tumbleweeds, and oil wells. They bought a Shasta camper and took us to see the sights over long weekends and our annual two week vacation. The trip I remember most vividly was to Yosemite. We visited the Mariposa grove and, like everyone else, drove through the Wanona Tree, a giant Sequoia that a tunnel had been cut through the middle in 1881. Our trailer got stuck and dad had to deflate the tires get us through the tree. (Alas, the Wanona tree fell in 1969.)
My first two plant memories represent polar opposites in the world of horticulture. One plant became the emblem of how agriculture forever changed the high plains; the other became the emblem of the Sierra Club and America’s efforts to save natural landscapes for future generations.
Lucky for me, our stay in west Texas was short and my encounters with plants would improve dramatically over the years. I find myself today living in the horticultural wonderland that is coastal Southern California and look forward to serving as president of the San Diego Horticultural Society.