The lessons from the storm.

A hero comes along to make sure the things in his house do not get any wetter than they already are. This brave man rises to the ocassion and was up the roof in a jiffy to repair as well as replace blown away tiles. However, being such a hero is not to be encouraged. Leave such tasks to the experts.

And here's a big awning of approximately 3.5 X 6 meters blown by the strong wind taking it from the front porch over the roof to the back of the house four doors away and placing it in the middle of the back lane.

Look at the roots beneath this huge tree. No main root is seen.

Fallen plants

and branches.

A fallen tree across a road.
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Immediately after the storm, with the last tiny drops of rain flowing slowly into the drains, I went to look at the damage nature has wrought and the amount of work that has to be involved to put things right.

I noticed something peculiar when I looked at all those uprooted trees. All those big trees which were uprooted by the wind and rain had no main root. The exposed roots were merely about three or four feet in the soil. This implies that those trees were planted either from cuttings or grafted. That could be the only reason those trees do not have main roots. (Even if there are main roots for those huge trees that fell, the main roots must be too thin to anchor the trees strongly to the ground.) Without main roots to anchor themselves, it is no wonder those huge tree could be uprooted.

So, trees planted from seeds with their main roots strongly embedded deep in the ground could withstand the forces unleashed by nature from time to time. And that is proved and confirmed to be true when I went up the hill in the morning to see some trees with broken trunks and branches but with the roots intact although the assault on them by the storm was not less strong up there.

Actually, I do not need to go up the hill to know that seeded trees withstood the might of the previous day’s gale better than ‘man-made trees’. I refer to those trees as man-made because nature meant big trees to have main roots to not only be stable and strong but also reach far down for the necessary water during times of drought and perhaps certain nutrients found there. (The soil is fast being drained, deprived or emptied of natural nutrients from decaying organic matter as a result of removing trees and natural space to make way for so called progress.) Here, in my own compound, are trees planted from seeds. There are an Alfonso mango tree with the seeds originating from a plantation in India and a star-fruit tree. They stood strong against the power of the previous day’s blast.

Thus, the next time we wish to plant a fruit tree which can grow tall very near to the house, a seeded plant would be better as it would be stronger and more stable with no chances of it being uprooted. Of course, with a seeded tree, we can never be sure of the taste unless it is obtained from the middle of an orchard where all the trees bear similarly good taste.

Of course, we could still ensure safety by trimming the bud-grafted tree so as to ensure it would never grow too tall or big to cause our property or us any harm.