Trees in our community

Cutting down trees

When we moved into our house in 1982, we cut down a number of trees in order to install a fence in the back yard. It was that era of (largely unfounded) fears of strangers snatching kids, and we felt our back yard was too close to the street. Little did we know that neither kids nor dog would want to be in a fenced area!

I think/hope they were Norway maples, not native sugar maples, but I wasn’t aware of those differences back then anyway.

(Here, John is tossing some of the tree debris into a town truck for removal.)

Now the area where these trees were is filled with native shrubs.

Sadly, there’s a local trend to cut down large trees (which are more likely to be native trees from the past) and replant with smaller merely-ornamental trees, often non-natives.

I don’t know if it’s fear left over from our traumatic Labor Day Storm of 1998, whether people don’t want to rake leaves (since everyone has mostly lawn, which can’t survive under a layer of leaves), whether it’s an aesthetic choice to highlight their large houses, or whether nurseries just push those smaller (often patented and therefore profitable) trees.

Whatever the reason, we’re leaving a severely impoverished community for those who come after us.

The Labor Day Storm, 1998
The Labor Day Storm, 1998 ©Janet Allen

One reason the Labor Day Storm was so devastating was that people had planted mostly silver maples (Acer saccharinum) when our area was developed in the 1930s and 1940s — fast-growing for instant gratification, but not the best choice for the future.

Now in the 2000s, it’s clear that the original inhabitants’ “future” time, of course, turns out to be our present time. We’re the grandchild generation of the generation who made this choice.

And we’re creating an even worse legacy for our own grandchildren’s generation: very few native trees, and no large trees at all!

Sometimes in our highly mobile society people are reluctant to plant large native trees, thinking that they’ll take too long to get large enough so they can “enjoy them.” Trees, though, can actually grow quite quickly — especially if you plant them from seed and let them stay in one place.

And why can’t we enjoy a plant at every stage of its growth anyway? Why do we think we can enjoy a 10-foot shrub, but not an immature 10-foot tree?

AND is our own temporary enjoyment the only thing we should consider?? Can’t we — shouldn’t we — consider other generations’ needs? These trees are our legacy for the future, whether we’re around to enjoy them or not.

Just planting them isn’t enough

Here’s the right idea: Plant native trees — especially oaks! Seven oaks were planted between the parking area and the playground at our local elementary school a few blocks from our house. (One was destroyed by a snow plow, but we still have six left.)

Oaks planted at our local school
Oaks planted at our local school ©Janet Allen
Damage to bark

You have to take care of them after planting.

It looks like they probably watered them to get them established since they seem to have been growing well.

BUT …

They didn’t put a circle of mulch at the base so the lawn mowers nicked the bark of all but one of them (though I’m sure the last one will get nicked sooner or later).

This isn’t healthy for the tree and could easily have been prevented.

Preparing for mulch around an oak
Preparing for mulch around an oak ©Janet Allen
Ring of mulch protecting the trunk
Ring of mulch protecting the trunk ©Janet Allen

SO… our neighborhood group decided to buy some mulch and create a ring around the trees to protect them!

Here, John is preparing the area, then they added the mulch. Just a modest size mulch ring should keep even the busiest maintenance workers from further damaging the bark. (AND, of course, he was careful not to create “volcano” mulching, which ultimately kills the tree…)

Watch out for power lines!

Tree under the power line

Trees are especially important as a way to sequester carbon, but they need to keep that carbon sequestered for decades. Unfortunately, many trees are planted in places where they’re unlikely to survive very long. Our street has a grass median with a power line going down the entire street.

So where did they plant trees? Directly under the power line, of course! It’s not likely they’ll be around as long as they should be — and in the meantime, they’re an aesthetic disaster. What could they have been thinking?

No space for trees?

One reason we don’t have more space in our yard for large trees, such as an oak, is that each house sits on an equal-sized piece of land, sometimes leaving little space for a truly large legacy tree. Still though, as we walk around our larger neighborhood, there are indeed many places — now covered in lawn — that would be suitable for large trees.

Creating more space for trees is an argument for different land-use planning. Why not group homes closer together and leave a larger common area that would have room for more such plants and the benefits they provide the whole community?

In the meantime, Tallamy suggested coppicing oaks so you can provide at least some of the benefits of oaks as host plants even in a small yard.

Resources

Miyawaki/afforestation resources

Reflections

Shading and cooling from tree canopies can reduce summer temperatures from uncomfortable to pleasant ranges. What’s more, the effect is additive: the more your neighbors add trees to their properties, the cooler the air mass within your neighborhood will be and the longer it will stay cool during extended heat waves.
~ Rick Darke and Doug Tallamy, The Living Landscape, 2014

Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.
~ Bill Vaughn

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.
~ Henry David Thoreau

When our concept of land ownership was generational, it must have seemed ordinary to plant a line of sapling sugar maples that someday one’s grandchildren would tap for maple syrup. Sugar maples planted along New England roads are well over a century old, some close to twice that age, but hardly anyone is planting young ones. I think this is deeply wrong, or at least inordinately selfish. I know my land will pass into the hands of strangers; even so, I owe them its future. In our present and difficult transition to a wiser suburban landscape, we are all pioneers, preparing the ground for its future occupancy.
~ Sara Stein, Planting Noah’s Garden

What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mere reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.
~ Mahatma Gandhi