RIP Herbie

As a gardener, I can usually be pretty ambivalent about plants dying, but Herbie the Elm's passing yesterday got to me.

When a tree lives for over 200 years, its death seems a little more melancholy than one of my perennials not making through the winter. When that tree is an elm that withstood the onslought of Dutch elm disease for decades, its even sadder.

Herbie's caretaker of 50 years, Frank Knight was phlisophical. "It's been a beautiful tree. I'm sorry to see it go. But nothing is forever."