Birth of an aspen tree

We’ve recently discussed aspen trees in this blog; they are the majority of species that grow on our property. Called quaking aspen for the trembling of its leaves, the tree is both ancient and enduring, approaching what’s been called "theoretical immortality." It’s a life form persisting over time without offspring, surviving in the apparent absence of sexual selection, living thousands of years between periods of successful reproduction. The asexual methods of propagating aspen works a follows: Quaking aspen clones have numerous long, lateral roots in the top 6 inches of the soil; suckers arise along these roots and become a younger generation that is genetically identical to its parent tree. Each individual tree can live between 40 and 150 years above ground, but the root system of the colony lives much longer. One such colony can be found in our own state of Utah; named "Pando", it is claimed to be 80,000 years old, making it possibly the oldest living colony of aspens. During spring and summer, we need to constantly remove all suckers to prevent a complete invasion. Two or three weeks ago, we decided to give one of these little guys a chance for life and let him grow in our front yard. Today, it’s already one foot tall, so we’ll keep you apprised of its progress as time passes!