Aspens are pretty cool, they are a native tree to the area but that doesn’t mean it’s always a good idea to plant them. These trees like water. Like, a lot. I’ll talk about it a little more in this video, I even get a chance to play a little boogie on my new harmonica, well, new to me. It’s an old Lee Oskar that was heavily modified by my coworkers late father. He sold it to me for a good deal and after cleaning it up it sounds GREAT. Zepp, if you ever read this, huge thanks, my guy. I will get hours of enjoyment out of this for years to come!
Back to aspen trees though, I would probably never put an aspen in my yard. Aside from the huge water requirements, they also have an extremely short lifespan compared to many trees in the area. They’ll typically live roughly 20-30 years before the trunk begins to deteriorate. The tree actually makes itself into a grove by cloning itself through the roots. So in truth the trees true lifespan is indeterminate. As long as it lives in proper conditions it actually lives forever, or at least the current record is at 30,000 years old with no signs of stopping anytime soon. Tens of thousands of Aspens all connected by the root, I’m speaking of the Pando forest in Utah. Pando being Latin for “I SPREAD” the tree spans for just over 100 acres, has roughly 40,000 trunks and is still growing. This is an extreme for the aspens, as it is the only one of it’s kind that reaches anything near this size, this might also explain why the oldest aspens have been found here as well, with “individual” trunks living for well over 100 years. Still a relatively short lifespan for trees, but impressive nonetheless. The aspens we plant in our yards are the same kind as the aspens in the Pando forest (Populus tremuloides) and they want much of the same freedoms, unlimited water, large open spaces to populate, and a clonal colony to depend on.
Ol' Gare's Garden 