In my back yard I have a fruitless mulberry tree. Two years ago it got its trim-back, so last summer it was leafy but not overly so.

This summer it is gorgeous. It's a 50-year-old tree, and its canopy covers at least half of the yard and much of the patio cover. Deep shade, the kind that discourages grass but provided blessed coolth in July and August.

The shade is cool and green at this time of year. The squirrels, quite at home, dart around its trunk and through its branches. The roots surface from the ground in places providing a different texture to the landscape around the tree.

The mulberry is the main reason I bought the house 20 years ago. When we were looking at houses, most of them had recent landscaping, raw and newly planted. This house had a giant old mulberry in the back and a large gnarly olive in the front.

I often think of the people who lived in this house before me. Clearly, someone loved trees as much as I do. I cherish my old trees and spend as much time under their protection as I can.

My SO suggested we cut them down and pave over the yard so that we wouldn't have to have the grass cut and the dog wouldn't track in mud.

I can't even imagine it.