For more than 20 years, my serviceberry tree has gifted the birds and me with small, round fruits that taste like almonds when you bake them in muffins. This year, it produced another huge crop, and that would be the last time I would harvest berries from the beloved tree. Serviceberries are short-lived in the plant world, and this one succumbed to old age with decaying leaves and dead branches after its final production this summer.
It is gone from my backyard now, having taken up the same space where a catalpa tree once grew. Decades ago, the catalpa had to be removed. When you lose a tree, just as when you lose a beloved pet, the sadness and the memories, including joyful ones, sneak up on you.
The first and only time I saw a red-headed woodpecker in my backyard was when it landed on the catalpa tree. The only time I’ve ever seen an evening grosbeak, a northerly visitor, in my yard, was also on the catalpa tree. A sunflower feeder hanging from the tree attracted the grosbeak, another one-day wonder I associate with that beautiful tree.
After I mourned the loss of the catalpa, I planted a serviceberry because it’s a native understory tree that feeds birds — and humans — in late June. It took several years before we got enough berries for muffins and for the birds. I remember one year my husband climbing on a ladder to pick some of the small juicy fruits, and me making a serviceberry pie mixed with blueberries.
Meanwhile, critters, no doubt squirrels, were planting c.