Our Douglas fir is the biggest star of the garden–really BIG! We guess the tree to be at least as old as the house (70 years) and at least 80 feet tall, with a trunk eight feet around at chest height. When we were shopping for a house to buy, I remember hugging this tree the first time I laid eyes on it. There are dozens of trees of similar age and size throughout our Haller Lake neighborhood. They host eagles who come for quick visits until the mobbing crows send them on their way. They host crows nests, bushtit nests, flocks of feeding chickadees, and dozens of other species.

There are some misconceptions about needle evergreens, and the biggest one is that they are somehow less messy than deciduous trees. A tree as big as our Douglas fir dumps millions of needles and pollen cones every year. In addition, there are thousands of cones that drop from the tree, and hundreds of branches snap off in windstorms. As much as possible, we try to tuck anything that the tree drops back under the tree so it can be nourished as it would be in nature.

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My 2020 plans for this behemoth are to cut the ivy away from its trunk completely and then us it as the keystone plant in my native plant garden. It provides shade and organic matter to the shrubs and perennials underneath it. It also provides some challenging competition for water and nutrients with its expansive root system. Surprisingly, though, many plants have evolved to grow under trees like this and I’m starting to bring them in.