Even though I constantly walk around my garden, it wasn't until a dozen years ago that I really began studying the different types of bark. Some looked so smooth that they seemed to have been polished, others were delightfully shaggy, and a few, like my coral bark maples, glowed with a radiance that could be spotted from quite a distance. I began to more closely examine the trees' exposed trunks and branches and now I'm hooked on the intricacies of bark. While I can't identify every tree by its bark (some can), it is easy to recognize the more obvious ones. Recognizing a tree by its bark makes my relationship with nature a little closer. A tree that was only an acquaintance becomes an old friend that I look for whenever I go out. Bark patterns range from deep vertical fissures to geometric blocks; colors can be gray, brown, yellow, red or even black. No two barks are identical; indeed, bark is as personal as a fingerprint. 
*excerpted from The Garden in Winter by Suzy Bales.
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