Coco McCabe: There is no Mending the Beechwood

Coco McCabe: There is no Mending the Beechwood by Aline SmithsonMarch 18, 2026

©Coco McCabe, from There is no Mending the Beechwood

Every summer, I leave California and head to the east coast for time in nature. Over the past several years, the forests have become less dense and are no longer the beautiful havens for humans and animals. The trees are sick and the leaves are lifeless. All across New England there is a destructive disease that is changing the landscape of Beech trees. Beech Leaf Disease is caused by a tiny wormlike nematode that burrows into buds and leaves, cutting off photosynthesis. Over time, the canopy thins, the leaves crinkle, and the tree slowly dies. Beech Leaf Disease, first discovered in Ohio in 2012, has spread rapidly across the northeast, reaching New England in the early 2020s.

We are all experiencing a form of environmental melancholia, and the destruction of these forests that we have come to love, is devastating. Today, photographer Coco McCabe shares a project, There is no Mending the Beechwood, that dreams of healing these trees, through interventions of sewing, stitching, and pinning, and willing of the fragile world of beech tree forests back to life.

©Coco McCabe, from There is no Mending the Beechwood

There is no Mending the Beechwood

At the end of Pineswamp Road a path through the brambles leads to the beechwood—a stand of once strong and slender trees with bark the warm gray of elephants. The grove has been my refuge for decades, cool and quiet under its summer canopy, crackling with bare branches in winter. But now, the beeches are dying. A new disease that causes the leaves to curl and another attacking the bark are killing the trees. Persistent drought, possibly a result of climate change, has not helped.

For a while, I told myself that with one summer of good rain, the grove would have the strength to fend off the leaf curl. But that summer has not come. Instead, the leaves twist and shrink into themselves, bark bubbles and sloughs from the trunks, and limbs litter the forest floor.

Six years ago I started photographing in the beechwood. In the beginning, I was intent on the notion of mending—pinning, sewing, stapling—hoping that attention to one or two ragged trees could save the stand. Surely, scientists were piecing together answers. A stitch in time was all the forest needed.

Now, I see there is no mending the beechwood. My revery has become, instead, a eulogy.

©Coco McCabe, from There is no Mending the Beechwood

Coco McCabe is a photographer in Ipswich, MA. She was a print journalist for many years before joining an international aid organization as a story-gatherer. While writing about communities in Africa, East Asia, and Central America, she started to photograph them as well. Now, McCabe is sticking closer to home with her camera. Glued to its viewfinder, she is working to understand and honor her corner of the world, where the stories are personal. She has also been exploring older photographic approaches, including cyanotype and gum bichromate printing. Her homemade pinhole camera collection now numbers 22.

Among the places McCabe has exhibited are the Danforth Art Museum in Framingham, MA; the Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts in Providence, RI; and the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA. As a true believer in the importance of local journalism, McCabe also regularly shoots photographs for the weekly newspaper in her town.

Instagram: @cocomccabe