One Billion Trees

I am planting this on the PNW thread because I have found so many of you to be lively, committed gardeners/plants people. And I thought you might be as moved by this as I am -

First the website: http://www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign/index.asp

I came across this in an article in the Guardian Newspaper today ( guardian.co.uk/climatechange ) referencing Professor Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize 2004. She has started a campaign to plant 1 billion trees next year, as part of the effort against global warming.

It catches my imagination because I have a small ambition (and small is the operative word) to re-establish wild pear trees - Pyrus Pyraster (Pyrus Communis) - in our valley in East Sussex. (I can bore for Britain on this - so I'll save that until someone really wants to know). I am pledging my 4 pears that I have grown from seed - 3 and 4 year olds - along side 4 Quercus Robur (3 year olds) which are being planted out this month.

There is something about planting trees which really affects me - I have a real faith in them, as if (and this sounds as wacky as some of our conversations about gathering leaves) somehow they could help us move towards peace - maybe it is the fact that they live so long, see so much, cross so many generations, allow us to contribute to the future. I know, that sounds....(?) - I don't know, but perhaps it is why I garden, but it is a good reason to plant a tree.

Any one else want to plant a tree? Doesn't have to be in your garden - how about at your church, or an apple tree at a school? Convince your super market to let you replace some nondescript shrubs with a tree - be creative! Lets see what we can contribute. Look forward to your thoughts, Laurie

I was wondering if anyone else on Dave's would consider joining in. Like the website says - 1 tree or a million, it all adds up.

Laurie, I was going to say the PNW didn't need any more trees, then I thought about some of the new homes going up just down the highway on postage stamp lots with ten foot yards! If this is a trend we're going to be in trouble. My SIG was a general contractor. When housing developments exploded east of Sacramento he went ballistic... "where do they think the water is going to go?". Shure nuff, next wet winter was all the terrible flooding and the levees' broke. Officials whined, "it's never done that before!" Oops, didn't mean to rant.

We're seeing that problem around here now, too, Katy, as I'm sure you are aware. I was listening to an interview with a UW person (can't remember his title) and he sure indicated that that development going on around this part of the country was a contributor to the flooding (along with levees, etc., not being checked or upgraded).

Laurie, the property in back of me was clear cut two years ago (granted it was alders which I've heard called weed trees), but trees nonetheless - and it has become a huge problem for those of us who border the property. Weeds in the form of thistle, nettles, blackberries, tall grasses, etc., took over and constantly encroach in our gardens. There is runoff as well because the cleared property is on a slope. Fortunately, a drainage ditch which runs either into the bay or into our little man made lake is a good one - in fact, I deepened and widened mine slightly when the devastation took place. The owner was required to replant evergreens, which I am told he did, but I guarantee you they are not flourishing. I'm sort of claiming part of that property as my own (only in theory, not for real) and have planted one little maple. I love your idea and will see what else I can plant along there. Thanks for thinking of us.

Katymac - I know what you mean by 'not needing anymore trees' - in the High Weald we have some of the largest and most intact ancient forests. And even our valley, has lovely large swathes of worked wood. But there is always a place for a tree, and always a need for a replacement. We constantly denude our environment without noticing, possibly as brutally (in proportional acreage) as some of the forestry clearing in Brazil and China. Have you ever thought about how many trees were cleared, and how much acreage is under a 10 lane highway or a parking lot at Pic'n'Save! Quite a bit.

So if we look to the new housing projects, new schools, and the acreage behind Murmur - there are a lot of places that trees could go in.

Murmur - I love the idea of your 'adoption' of the acreage behind you. And it is true - Alders will spring up anywhere - along with birch, sycamore and ash! But managed and worked, they become good woodlands. A couple more of those maples in the area behind you will give your garden a lovely backdrop one day, and help with the water runoff, not to mention a bit of diversity amongst the alders. Watch for the Maple seedlings coming up in the spring and nurse them on for a year or two - then plant them out a bit further a field. The Oaks that I grow on are all acorns that the squirrels have buried in inconvenient places. I just pop them in a pot for a year or two.

Give it some thought to where you could plant one, and sign up for the Green Belt movements 1 Billion Trees.

Laurie, I will read the website tonight and promise to get involved one way or another. Thanks again for thinking of us tree huggers out here in the Pacific Northwest, Washington State!!

About those alders - it's comical, but they are not popping back up in the cleared area, but are popping up all over the place in my gardens, including every container. For a joke, I potted some up and will try selling them at my plant sale next year. And, of course, I will then plant them out in the "meadow" which used to be the woods.

I believe whole-heartedly in this initiative! So far, my husband and I have planted about 40 trees, mostly evergreens, to try to replace what the developers cleared. In the next phases of landscaping, we plan to put in fruit trees, more evergreens, and some deciduous varieties for spring flowers and autumn color. Between that and my still empty garden beds, it’s sure to be a life-long project. :)

This message was edited Nov 9, 2006 10:28 AM

When I got married in 1987 and moved in with my husband in North Bend, the area between our house and the highway was almost empty -- nothing but some trees, shrubby growth and grass. Over the next 10 years or so the area became home to a Safeway and associated strip-mall, several fast-food restaurants and gas stations, and eventually an outlet mall and a large Nintendo warehouse. Every year when flood season came around everyone looked at each other and said, "I've never seen the water so high before!"

When we moved out in September '05 our mortgage company had just notified us that we would now be required to carry flood insurance, even though our house had never been touched by the water that swept through our river-side neighborhood nearly every year -- sometimes twice a year. The family who bought our house was a nice, young couple with two small children and a new baby who were absolutely overjoyed to find a house with a nice little yard. I pray that they can still say that the house has never been flooded, but from pictures on the news this week I'm very afraid they may have felt this one. I'm pretty sure everyone up there is again shaking their heads in disbelief and asking, "Where did all this water come from?"

The hills and mountains around them are covered with trees, although maybe not as many as there were 100 years ago, but the valley around the river is quickly being paved over. Sometimes it's not how many trees you have, it's where you put them!

The purpose of planting trees to help in the CO2 build up is the need to trap carbon back into a plant source that will remain a long time. This is because of all the fossil fuels we are dragging out of the earths crust are being released into our air. Heating fuels, etc all take trapped CO2 and release it. I think the best way for long term deposit is to make a beautiful garden that stays and people don't cut down as soon as you sell. That requires planning and proper placement along with planting. This Sunday my DD is employing me all day planting trees in a park in Sumner so that it is a future joy to all who visit. I raised her right!

Soferdig: I agree. In our case, the first priority was to plant a row of evergreens to obscure the stretch of road that was all too visible from the house. We chose a mix of evergreens, planted in clusters, so the various shades of green and needle shapes look a little more organic. The trees are hopefully going to be in the ground long past my final breath, so strategic placement is paramount.

... and this is how they look today.

My DH has decided that a double row of thuja is the answer to everything, bless his heart. He wants to surround our whole 4 acres with them as a privacy screen. We bought 5 this spring but 3 of them went belly-up because of the heat and drought this year. I figure we have about 1500 running feet to plant. At one thuja every 3 feet (they're a small sort) and two rows deep, I calculate we'll need about 1000 plants. I currently have 48 starts that I took from one branch (hopefully) rooting in my greenhouse. It's just a fraction of what we'll need to complete his project, but you gotta start somewhere. :-)

Wangari Maathai gave a talk at our university, Oregon State, and I got to hear her talk. She is an "everyday" person who made a difference!

Wow, MzWeazelle, that an impressive goal. I hadn't heard of "thuja" before, but even a cursory Google search reveals it to be "America's most popular privacy tree!" :)

I am not that much of a thuja fan to plant that amount. I would buy a house out in the country first then plant trees. Or get used to living in a city that privacy fences aren't needed.

But we just moved out of the city to a place in the country! DH figures now we have enough room to plant a privacy screen. Go figure.

I knew this was the place to put this thread! You people are wonderful!!!

I am just on the way out to check on my young pear trees, and I am going out with a song in my heart. I think if Prof. Maathai saw how much talk this generated in on day she would be proud.

Lets plant some trees.

Baolvera - I envy you.

Wow - what a lot to reply to. And my thanks for all of your interest.

Baolvera - I would love to know a bit more about the talk that Prof Maathaii gave at your University. Would it be worth topping this thread up with any further information? Or even start a new one - Pass on what you learned. Let's keep her info circulating so making a difference stays in the present tense.

And Murmur - I think the idea of potting on the alders is great. Not only for planting out in the 'meadow' (I love the idea of giving the developers back what they took out), but also for encouraging others. The Billion Tree project is asking people to plant indigenous trees in appropriate places so they can be sustainable - and it sounds like your alders, like my oaks and pear trees, are just the ticket. Local source, local product, low carbon impact! Perfect solution.

Mz - Can you convince dear husband that a combination of indigenous conifers might be a more interesting and realisitic solution to the privacy screen than the blankness of a thuja hedge? (Do you know that we have restrictions in the UK where we can use Thuja because of its agressiveness). Especially if 3 out of 5 of the plants went belly up that might be saying something about they are the wrong trees for that location. I love the look of Estreya's borderline planting, and it seems pretty effective at softening the effect of the neighbours roofline's. Is it worth showing him the photos she posted to get him thinking in another direction? (Estreya, apropos of nothing - small world, but my brother and his family moved up to Ridgefield a few years ago - his wife is an absolutely keen gardener!)

And as Katymac and Soferdig point out - we are changing our environment - Maathaii says what we really need is 140 million (that should read 140 billion) trees to make a real impact, but maybe if we can all think 1 tree at a time, and there are enough of us doing that (along with watching our air miles, and road miles, and recycling, and voting) we can help to make an impact. So, to put my back muscles into the space where my mouth is, here is what I have decided to do:

I am signing up to plant out 10 trees in the next 12months, and I have sown 60 more Pear tree seeds, and potted on my 8 one year old trees. I have posted seeds to 6 other gardener's who have also expressed an interest in regenerating Pyrus Pyraster, and passed on 2 of my 3 year old trees for planting out in another county.

Look foward to further discussion. Laurie



This message was edited Nov 11, 2006 5:11 AM

Unfortunately thuja is the only thing DH has seen that will do what he wants, which is to create a solid barrier from the ground up a good 20 feet or so. He's going to have to put some breaks in it or else he'll exclude the deer, or they'll just nibble their way through and do heavy damage to the hedge. At this point I have no idea whether I can change his mind on this, but it will take so long to do that I've got a chance. :-)

I am all for trees. The National Arbor Foundation will send you trees free if you send a nominal joining fee. They used to anyway. Mine are finally growing taller after about 8 years!
http://www.arborday.org/

Holidays are coming. I'm trying to downsize and get rid of 'junk' I don't want or need. Consider Heifer International whose non profit work benefits so many worldwide, in so many ways. In past holidays I have given parts of llamas, goats, waterbuffaloes LOL, saplings, bunnies and ducks as gifts or stocking stuffers. How can you miss? You just haven't lived until you've given someone a waterbuffalo part for the holidays!
http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.204586/

For years, both pre and post 9/11, I have dug, packed, and transported many little pines, cedars, birches and maple saplings from our family cabin in the midwest to my own yard/s and an oak sprout from my sister's yard that gives us the only dose of red autumn color here nowdays. TSA doesn't seem to mind at all. All have travelled in a typical school sized backpack, been transplanted at least once and 90+% thrive today. The 7 year old birches (below) are 25 ft tall! I search for little cedar saplings in our own woods to transplant for our use elsewhere in the yard. But I really enjoy getting a little bit of my home state to grow and thrive in our soggy, miserable NW climate.

The work of Professor Mathaai is very inspiring. And Laurie 1 I wish you well with your pear tree project in your area of the UK. I commit to at least 50 trees in the next 5 years, but I'm usually only stealing them from one place to another! Maybe they will reproduce and that will count for some effort?

Poochella - I think that is a great project. And I would like to think of your transplanting in the other direction: managing a woodland is important. Thining trees helps sustain the lower story of plants, and improves the growth of trees. Perhaps carrying out a couple extra in a partners rucksack could be passed on at a plant sale, or given to a neighbour. We just need to think creatively. A maple is a pretty nice christmas gift, too. (I must admit, the idea of unwraping a piece of goat does make me flinch a bit - but the terrier thinks it a great idea!)

Thanks.

Thank you for your kind words Laurie1. At the risk of stating the obvious, it's very much a work in progress. :)

As to your brother and family, what a coincidence! The older i get, the smaller seems the globe ...

Cheers!

Laurie, thanks so much for thinking of us and posting the link! I am definitely 'in' on this! I understand what you mean when you say that trees have something to do with peace. I think it's just such a hopeful thing to plant a tree. They take so long to mature, and so really, when you plant one, you are making a statement about your hope for the planet.
Trees are always a hot topic in the northwest. I live in an area that used to be oak prairie and there is very precious little of it left. What is left has had the developers chomping at the bit. Our small city finally established some protected area that the builders can't get their hands on. I'm not against building houses, after all, I live in one. But it really reams me how they mow down every tree in site just to make the job easier.

I do frequently get baby garry oaks springing up here and there on my property and I try to let them grow whenever possible. If anyone on this forum is interested in a garry oak seedling, let me know. I usually have one or two that are growing too close to something else.

Also, another offer I have for anyone on this forum is some cherry tree seedlings. These bear tart, red pie cherries and are babies from a very old cherry tree next to the house. They are 12 or so feet tall and I have too many of them for them all to be healthy. If anyone wants to come get one or two, you are welcome to them. They are already bearing fruit and this is a good time to dig them and move them.

Oh, goodness! Pixydish you are brillant. Put a sign out, and tell people to stop in! My family is originally from Seattle - and I remember my Aunt Ethel had the most magnificent cherry tree - pie cherry. And of course, my dad being an engineer and not a botantist had no idea what the tree was. I wish I could stop by and collect one! But goodness could that woman make pies - brillant crusts!

II honestly think trees do aid peace - maybe because they make us think about the world we live in. I just got a d-mail from another plants person in Argentina. We have been swapping some tree seeds. He was telling me that he is so passionate about growing trees he grows them on the roof of his house and then goes and finds streets with out any trees. Plants them out, struggles to get them to grow, protects them against bugs and people. He just loves trees, feels they make things better. Maybe they do, maybe the planting out reminds people that they are being thought about, cared about. Maybe that helps. And maybe there is a lesson in there for the developers - leave a tree, develop a community.

One tree at a time.

Laurie, wish I could send you a cherry tree! Pie cherries they are, so probably the same as the ones your Aunt Ethel had. A sign on the street might be a good idea. I can also list on Craigslist if no one on DG wants them. I'll post another thread just for these trees.

I recently heard a report on the radio about a bit of research some sociologist was doing up in the Chicago 'projects', the low-income govenment housing that Chicago is known for. They found that when they provided a green space with trees and grass in the center of each section of apartment buildings, the crime rate went down significantly. If I remember correctly , it was something like a 60% lower rate. Might have been 40%, but that's nothing to sneeze at, either. Coincidence? I think not!

Its not just recent research that found the link between lower crime rates and green spaces - I remember during my first degree reading Jane Jacobs work - Cities and the Wealth of the Nation. A bit of a dry title, but basically she wrote about the importance of social space and the need to maintain a humane quality to urban living in order to keep our cities healthy and alive. I believe she wrote that back in the sixties. When we moved into London from Oxford, we moved into an area called Marylebone (ahhhh, now the chic of the chic areas, but it was a bit of a forgotten corner then). But it had (and still has) a wonderful mixture of population: young families, low and high income (we have three large blocks of subsidised housing - two of which are victorian), a large population of seniors, and young executives. Full coterie of shops and a couple of restaurants. But most important it had three small parks within a 5 city block area, two for quiet sitting, and one with a full playground and a walk way straight through. I remember Jane Jacobs talked about the timing of a city park, who uses it at what time of the day, who sits where during which season. And the number of times I have watched that park (usually at the end of a dog lead!) and thought 'she was so right, so right'. The parks have an amazing vitality to them, people commute through them in the morning, come to sit, bring children, eat lunch (in the summer even dinner), meet greet, and work in them. (By the way, my terrier owns all of the squirrels, does a complete inventory everyday, and refuses to share them with other dogs). Extraordinary. But part of her point was that when a population integrate public space into their everyday lives, when they spend time using their neighbourhood, crime is less likely. I honestly think our neighbourhood in London would be a much different place without those spaces.

I hope she knows how significant her work has been. Certainly a tremendous influence on me.

Laurie, you described that so beautifully - I could close my eyes and picture it all . . . and breathe in the wonder of such a neighborhood. Hope you do lots of writing - and keep explaining the correlation between public spaces and less crime. It's fascinating and I'm sure to any of us who garden a "well, of course!"

Murmur, I blush.

Yes, I can just see it, Laurie!

Owwwwwww.

Laurie1 that is lovely about the park and your observations. I have always wondered why there aren't many more parks in cities and towns across the nation as I feel this is a place where you can be closer to nature and by so being you are closer to life itself.

We have planted about 50 trees on our property in the past three years and I have given away many English Oak trees that I had potted up from my flower beds. We have an area of the property that we call "the forest" where we plan on planting over 200 more trees in the next two or three years. It is a varied tree "forest" of birch, ash, black locust, honey locust, paw paw, peach, nectarine, apricot, poplar, pines, firs, spruce, juniper, maples, and several others. My DH's dream is to have the shade so dense that grass doesn't want to grow and then he wants to under plant it with shade loving plants. It will serve as a windbreak and air cooler for our house and yard as well as a habitat for birds. I wish I could say it is all indigenous trees but that would be mostly black cottonwood and I am very allergic to the pollen of that tree. Figures. lol

I love this idea and will spread the word. Thank you for bringing it to us.

Lani

Ponditis - that sounds wonderful. And I love the idea of using it as an air coolant. What a stunning idea.

Thanks Laurie,

I live in the high desert of Idaho and the summer temperatures get over 100 degrees F (48C) and we have noticed that under our huge oak tree that the temp. is at least 12 degrees cooler. Even the air near the oak in the full sun is cooler by at least 5 degrees. That is a huge difference to my body so a ton of trees growing in the yard will help cool the area around us when we are working in the yard. I can't wait till they get big enough to start making a real difference.

When I gave away three more oak seedlings today I thought about this thread. A neighbor told me he had admired our oak tree for years so I gave him three three foot tall trees. He was delighted. :)

Lani

Lani, that's fascinating! Wish I could pop over and get an oak tree or two!

I can mail acorns very easily. They grow two feet the first year. The mother tree was planted from an acorn in 74 and is about 40 feet tall now and we don't get the rainfall you get. If you want some let me know. These acorns are large ones about an inch long.

Lani

This is really inspiring.

I think this is exactly what Prof. Mathaii is aiming at with her one billion tree project - for people to think about how trees effect (and affect?) our lives. To talk about our experience of trees, and to make offers across boundaries - social, physical, ecological and generational boundaries. Ponditis, it is marvellous to think how the fact that you noticed the temperature difference, led to you planting a woodland, which in the future will continue to cool your house for a completely different resident. And perhaps someone will go and rest on a hot afternoon and eat peaches and think "lovely planting, that was real thinking". And perhaps Murmur will plant a couple of your acorns, and her great-grandchildren will build a treehouse for their children to have a private space. And the children will sit up there and make up stories and draw pictures and one will become the Schultz of their generation. And my pear trees, some generations away will be harvested for their beautiful, close grained wood and inspire a new generation of lute makers and furniture designers. This is what Pixydish and I were talking about earlier in this thread, about the possibility of trees to generate peace - perhaps they help us to slow down a bit and think. And who could raise a hand, or refuse a hand, to another if we thought about it first. Maybe that is the job of a tree - to help us think.

I am really proud of this thread. Thank you. That is heartfelt.

After all, we're all in this world together, right??

Murmur is going to be planting a forest of my tree's acorns by spring in her Murmur Meadow. Won't that be lovely? I am excited about that prospect.

Laurie, It is funny you would say that it might help us to slow down a bit and think. We have a concrete area under half our oak shade that the past residents used as a parking area that we use as a patio because it is so cool there in the summer and wonderful to sit there and look at our half acre pond and the hosta garden and contemplate the wonders of the world we are in. Friends stop by and know that when they arrive they can go to our outside refrigerator and enjoy a cool drink from it so they stop and listen to the birds and watch the fish jump and the frogs singing and swat mosquitoes. I consider that tree as my friend and love it dearly. It is shelter from storms, a nesting area for many birds, food for the squirrels, a cool place to sit when you are hot from working in the sun, shade for my hostas and me, a beautiful green being to look at in the summer and a gorgeous yellow explosion in the fall and much, much more. Yup that tree is loved dearly. Now its babies will be traveling to another state to make someone else happy. Life is good

Pixy, yes we are all in this together. We can change this world for the better one person at a time one day at a time.

Lani

Have you any pictures? I'd love to see it.

Lani, I'd love to see pics, too, and am really excited at the prospect of growing trees from acorns you send me!!

Yes, it's quite amazing how much a tree can come to mean to us. I don't have many fond memories of the house i grew up in, save for one great oak that still chokes me up when i think of it. I wonder if that tree is still standing .....