Massachusetts Horticultural Society, the oldest horticultural library in the United States, has an impressive collection of botanical images dating from 1620 to 1969. Recently, Mass Hort collaborated with Digital Commonwealth to digitize these images and made these historic images available to the public for viewing online at Digital Commonwealth's website. This exhibit of contemporary images underscores the relevance and importance of Mass Hort's botanical image collection today.    

Since migrating to New England some 35 years ago, I have become a connoisseur of fresh-cut trees, able to discuss the particular merits of Frasers and concolor firs, balsams, and spruces. I believed in soaring trees: for 16 years, our trees rose as high as our cathedral ceiling would allow: some years more than 14 feet. Whatever their height, our trees fill our home with the wonderful scent that only a Christmas tree can bring.

This Christmas was our first in our new home. The vaulted ceiling of our old home has been supplanted by an energy-efficient eight-foot one. So, naturally, we traded height for girth. The Fraser fir that came into our home on December 18 had branches that stretched an improbable four feet from the trunk at it base, giving the tree an eye-popping circumference of 25 feet. It took seven strings - 900 lights - to satisfy Betty that there were no gaps in its brilliance.

Our trees are the history of our lives, from my baby shoes and delicate ornaments from the 1930s handed down from Betty's family, to a wealth of travel mementos repurposed as decorations. Boxes bearing tiny bells and crystal icicles still bear the name of long-vanished stores - B. Altmans, Woodward & Lothrop - where they were purchased decades ago at prices that seem to be missing a digit.

But a Christmas tree is an ephemeral visitor. Some friends, especially those with young children, keep their tree lighted beyond Twelfth Night. In our home, the tree goes up a week before Christmas and comes down on New Year's Day. Regardless of the duration, though, the tree must eventually make its exit.

For our trees, those two weeks of glory are just a stage in a longer journey. On the appointed morning after our tree has been 'de-consecrated' of its ornamentation but still in its stand in our home, I bring in a pair of sturdy loppers and begin cutting off those lower branches (an enormous sheet of plastic is a necessity).

The branches are dispersed to insulate perennials and low-growing shrubs. They offer a layer of protection from unwanted sun and its resulting harmful freeze-thaw cycles. They lessen the impact of frost heaves and unwelcome animal visitors. This year, the lower four feet of our tree yielded some 30 branches that were deployed to all corners of our property. At our old home, we scavenged trees from up and down our street to cover our extensive perennial beds. As our new garden grows, so may we return to that tradition.

   

After the lower boughs were removed there remained another lush four feet of tree with thick branches. We left those on the still-eight-foot trunk and placed the tree at the edge of the wetlands behind us. Almost all of the trees in our wetlands are deciduous; the lone evergreens are thin white pines. Our Christmas tree will serve as a refuge for birds seeking shelter from wind, rain, and snow.

In April, we will collect the fir boughs and take them to our town's transfer station where they will be chipped into mulch. A month later, as the remaining fir loses its needles, that remnant, too, will begin its final journey.

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Neal Sanders' tenth mystery, 'How to Murder Your Contractor' will be available at the end of January You can find Neal's books at Amazon.com and in bookstores.