January/February 2014 : - Severe storms rage the country. Extremely high seas, pouring rains, hurricane force winds. Day after day it went. For weeks, with brief respites from the constant onslaught.
Those stormy weeks wrecked havoc everywhere, few places were left untouched.
Ours wasn’t one of those. It was touched.
Some 10 years ago, on our little farm, I planted 2 Jacaranda trees. I called them “The Twins”. They were a pair of the few “ornamental” trees I planted there, all others being fruit bearers.
- Jacaranda.jpg (14.83 KiB) Viewed 2420 times
They never got a good hold, unfortunately, and two years ago they started to die, as if feeling unwelcome there, among all the other hard working trees (that’s what I felt they felt, then). Coming Spring, they produced but some leaves and even fewer flowers. Last year, only the topmost branches had any leaves at all and not one flower among them. Many of its branches had dried completely, I could snap them with a little twist of my fingers.
“Cut them down” my father said. But I did not. I don’t “cut down” trees. I’ll trim some, yes, and that only in mid February when they’re “asleep”, for many fruit trees “need” that trimming and I then do it to help them. But no one will ever see me “cut down” a tree. I only plant them. In pairs. Could talk a lot about why, but now that’s not either the time or the point I want to make.
This February, one of the Twins came down. Uprooted by stormy winds, too sick to resist their assault. The other stood, I wondered why, for it too was as anemic as its brother.
15 February, I grabbed my phone and sent this picture to my wife with a laconic “
One of the Twins quit the fight” for I had seen their struggle to keep alive - while slowly dying - and so yes, that’s what I thought, “you quit, didn’t you?”, and wrote it down likewise.
- Downed Twin.jpg (19.79 KiB) Viewed 2420 times
Looking then at the lonely surviving tree, feeling its now deeper misery and stoic helplessness,
Lakhovsky came to my mind.
His initial experiments with plants. The amazing results he obtained with a simple copper ring.
I know not a thing about frequencies, my mind raced, and he said the ring was an antenna, that its diameter corresponded to the “frequency” of the plant, so how can it be done correctly, I wondered.
“But what if I just do it, no matter what …” I thought.
While looking Georges up, I had read somewhere that the ring should be
(a) positioned in early April,
(b) with its open ends overlapping by around 1 inch,
(c) that the open ends should - “in some cases” - be oriented towards the North, and
(d) that the ring should have an inclination regarding the horizon of about 35 degrees.
Enough for an ignoramus like me to work with.
I looked at one of my orange trees, which is a bit on the downside. “You could use a ring too, right ? make some friendly company to the Twin, will you ?”
And then I moved.
I had to run down 4 (four !) “plumbing specialized” shops ! “Copper pipe ? Now why do you want a copper pipe ? No one uses copper pipes anymore, mister ! Here, take some perfectly fine PVC tubes”.
Which I did. For the rings had to be “fixed” on something, and so I bought a long one to saw up and use as “holders”. And moved onto the next shop. Same answer, slight wording variations. On to the third, where I drew another blank but got a lesson on the “superior properties of polymerized vinyl chloride” and “synthetic resins used in plumbing”, as if I gave feck about it! By now I was feeling almost desperate, have copper tubes simply disappeared ?
And on the fourth, my question - issued with defeat in my voice, I have to admit - got a surprising answer : “How thick and how long ?”
So I bought a 1 meter long, 2 centimeter wide copper tube. Nickel plated, which was the only kind available.
Only stupidly long afterwards did I think I may have made a big mistake. First, I should not have bought a “pipe” but a “wire”, meaning, solid copper not “hollow”. And it should not have been “plated” but just copper.
When I thought about this,
early April, I had already installed it around my Twin and its shotgun ridding pal, the orange tree. My only – very slight - excuse was the ordeal I had been through and the relief at finding the damn thing at last, which derailed further thoughts. And never before having done, that is, something like trying to “replicate” Georges Lakhovsky experiments.
Below is the crude installation I made around the Twin, as I said, in early April :
- Copper ring.jpg (21.7 KiB) Viewed 2420 times
I shot it this weekend,
May 3rd. For I could not believe my eyes.
I was not even thinking of going there, other things planned, but my father insisted for he was going and wanted company, for “I am old and one never knows”. So I went, for it is when one says he never knows that he will surely know something, I thought, and feared.
How right I would be, I was about to find out.
For when we got there, we both stood … well, stupefied. That’s the word.
I also took a pic from the same angle I took the “Downed” one in February, to show my wife. It is below :
- Surviving Twin, May 3rd.jpg (23.58 KiB) Viewed 2420 times
Since it is far away to really see what stupefied us (but if you look closely, you can see it), I got closer and took this one :
- Leafs sprouting.jpg (23.96 KiB) Viewed 2420 times
For the Twin is sprouting leaves … everywhere ! from the bottom till the top and not only at its extremities but all along the branches !
This from a tree that was more dead than alive ! That had stopped to grow leaves years ago, except a few limp ones at its topmost branches.
So, this “overall sprouting” is nothing short of a dazzling thing to see.
I may be jumping to conclusions … for is it the ring ? or has the tree “revived” by itself ?
What can I say ? You make your own minds.
My father looked at me (he had not exactly ridiculed my putting the ring there and my expectations for doing it, but you may get my meaning) and asked :
- “
Who exactly was that Georges fellow once again ? What about we donning a ring around every tree ?”
I’m thinking about it.
And also thinking that what we know is immensely
less than what we don’t know.
