Alias, Cedar Tree By Pat Gibson

When we first decided to settle here above Sulfur Creek, I was all for preserving the natural vegetation and changing the place as little as possible. Some folks move out to the country and try to make the part around their house look like Zilker Park, but I wanted it wild. Well, we had to cut out a few trees to clear a place for the house. We cleared out a few more to make the driveway, but after I had talked to some of the longtime residents and my allergist, we started clearing off all the cedar.

Now we all call those trees cedars, but that's not what the folks who classify plants call them. They are officially called "Juniperus Ashei" the ash juniper or blue berried juniper tree. It is a kind of tree that grows all over the western US and, except for fence posts, a little fire wood and cedar oil, isn't worth much.

Well, I can't really say that, the birds like them and some critters will eat the branches if they can't find anything else. And I guess the allergy doctors like them because they keep the bills paid in the winter. Not many other things pollinate in the middle of the winter, that's what makes your nose run, all that rusty colored pollen. We're pretty lucky I've been told, to have the blue berried juniper. Out west of us they have the red berried juniper. It's the one that will grow back from the roots or a branch or, if there's enough rain, the fence posts will sprout. They don't make many fence posts made from red berried because it grows close to the ground and twisted. We haven't always had the blue berried around here.

One of the old timers told me once that when he was a boy to see cedars, you had to drive east of Dripping Springs. There was a camping area in the first cedar break near what we call Cedar Valley. That was where you would spend the night when you were going to Austin by horse and wagon. Imagine, taking most of two days to get from Dripping Springs to Austin! They told me that the cedar started to get thick around here in the late 1920's. That was when the farming stopped and the land began to be overgrazed or left alone. The cedars had been along the creeks and in draws, but mostly they had been east and north of here.

A while back I talked to a soil conservation specialist about clearing the cedars. He was all for it. In fact he said they have paid people to clear it off. People at the Soil Conservation Service figure that lots of the little seep springs that the early settlers told about would start running again if we cleared off the cedar and let the native grasses grow. The cedar has always been here, but it never got out of the deep canyons and stream beds. They tell me that when the Spanish first came this whole area was grass covered, rolling hills. The grass fires that burned across the prairies every couple of years kept the cedar and other small trees in the canyons. The thick stands of grass held the dirt on the hills and discouraged all but the strongest trees from growing. We've kept some of the cedars on our place, just the ones with berries since they don't make your nose run. However, crew number two told me recently that the biology teacher at school says those darn trees will change sex on you if you cut down too many of one kind. Just one more reason to hate the dumb things!

Some birds like to feed on the berries and if we succeeded in clearing off all the cedar, they could still find food. Some critters will eat some strange things, like buzzards eating dead things but that's another story.

© 1986,1996 by Sulfur Creek Enterprises, Austin, Texas