Posted on 04/15/2023 5:54:23 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you.
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(Disclaimer: Yeah, there’s a lot of hippy-dippy stuff in here, since the ‘Global Warmists’ have captured every aspect of our lives. This was the LEAST ‘preachy’ article I read, of the half-dozen I found on the importance of planting trees. HOWEVER, trees are too important to me (and others) to ignore, so read with a grain of salt...but no salt near your trees, LOL!)
WHY TREES? THE BENEFITS OF PLANTING TREES
Trees help clean the air we breathe, filter the water we drink, and provide habitat to over 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity.
Forests provide jobs to over 1.6 billion people, absorb harmful carbon from the atmosphere, and are key ingredients in 25% of all medicines. Have you ever taken an Aspirin? It comes from the bark of a tree!
Here are the six pillars that explain why trees are vital:
AIR
Trees help to clean the air we breathe. Through their leaves and bark, they absorb harmful pollutants and release clean oxygen for us to breathe. In urban environments, trees absorb pollutant gases like nitrogen oxides, ozone, and carbon monoxide, and sweep up particles like dust and smoke. Increasing levels of carbon dioxide caused by deforestation and fossil fuel combustion trap heat in the atmosphere. Healthy, strong trees act as carbon sinks, offset carbon and reducing the effects of climate change.
WATER
Trees play a key role in capturing rainwater and reducing the risk of natural disasters like floods and landslides. Their intricate root systems act like filters, removing pollutants and slowing down the water’s absorption into the soil. This process prevents harmful waterslide erosion and reduces the risk of over-saturation and flooding. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Association, a mature evergreen tree can intercept more than 15,000 litres of water every year.
BIODIVERSITY
A single tree can be home to hundreds of species of insect, fungi, moss, mammals, and plants. Depending on the kind of food and shelter they need, different forest animals require different types of habitat. Without trees, forest creatures would have nowhere to call home.
- Young, Open Forests: These forests occur as a result of fires or logging. Shrubs, grasses, and young trees attract animals like black bears, the American goldfinch, and bluebirds in North America.
- Middle-Aged Forests: In middle-aged forests, taller trees begin to outgrow weaker trees and vegetation. An open canopy allows for the growth of ground vegetation prefered by animals like salamanders, elk, and tree frogs.
- Older Forests: With large trees, a complex canopy, and a highly developed understory of vegetation, old forests provide habitat for an array of animals, including bats, squirrels, and many birds.
SOCIAL IMPACT
From arborists to loggers and researchers, the job opportunities provided by the forestry industry are endless. We don’t just rely on trees for work, though. Sustainable tree farming provides timber to build homes and shelters, and wood to burn for cooking and heating. Food-producing trees provide fruit, nuts, berries, and leaves for consumption by both humans and animals, and pack a powerful nutritional punch.
HEALTH
Did you know that hospital patients with rooms overlooking trees recover faster than those without the same view? It’s impossible to ignore that feeling of elation you get while walking through a calm, quiet forest. Trees help reduce stress and anxiety, and allow us to reconnect with nature. In addition, shade provided by tree coverage helps protect our skin from the ever-increasing harshness of the sun.
CLIMATE
Trees help cool the planet by sucking in and storing harmful greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into their trunks, branches, and leaves — and releasing oxygen back into the atmosphere. In cities, trees can reduce ambient temperatures by up to 8° Celsius. With more than 50% of the world’s population living in cities — a number expected to increase to 66% by the year 2050 — pollution and overheating are becoming a real threat. Fortunately, a mature tree can absorb an average of 22lbs of carbon dioxide per year, making cities a healthier, safer place to live.
How Trees Defined America
(Historian Erik Rutkow argues in a new book that forests are key to understanding how our nation developed and who we are today)
According to historian Eric Rutkow, the United States would not be the country we know today without the vast forests that provided the growing nation with timber, paper and other resources—and eventually inspired our environmental consciousness. In his recently published book American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation, Rutkow traces the history of the United States through our trees, from the mighty elm in the heart of Boston that would become the Liberty Tree, to California’s giant conifers, which inspired an early generation of conservationists.
How has Americans’ relationship with trees shaped our character?
We have such a material abundance of trees. Trees allowed us to develop this style of aggressive consumption, and this style of immediacy over permanence in how we look at developing the landscape.
How has this relationship shifted over time?
For most of American history, trees surround us conspicuously. I’m not talking forests and the environment we plant around them, but our homes—you can really see that wood is everywhere. And there’s a shift that happens in the middle of the 20th century, where we’re still depending on wood to build many things, but we start hiding it and processing it. At the same time we start pursuing new legislation to create things like wilderness areas, and to have recreation in forests and national parks. That split is a really interesting development in the American character, the evolution of the idea of the forest as where we go to find spirituality, the forest as where we go to find recreation, the forest as where we go to escape.
With wood and forests less visible in our daily lives, have we lost touch with our trees?
In some ways we’ve lost an obvious closeness to our trees. If you were to look back at earlier epochs, many Americans would be able to at least identify the trees that constitute the environment where they lived. We’ve really lost that sensibility. If you were to read this book and simultaneously read a few books on tree identification, I think you would then be able to walk through whatever environment you’re in—it could be a suburb, it could be a city, it could be the countryside, it could be a park—and you would not only be able to name those trees, but, seeing how they were through the history of America, you could really start to see the history of how the country evolved.
Over the course of your research, what were some of the most interesting things you learned?
There’s a surprisingly high correlation between the presidents I think of as great and the presidents that were considered tree-lovers. George Washington was obsessed with trees. Thomas Jefferson was a very informed horticulturalist and had a lot of books on trees and planted a lot of tree species. The president who created the greatest number of national forests was Teddy Roosevelt. He was profoundly shaped by his ideas about wilderness and nature and forests. And very few people appreciate that FDR’s love for trees was very deep. When FDR was the president and he went to cast his vote—at that time they asked you to list your occupation—he wrote his occupation down as “tree grower.”
Continues: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-trees-defined-america-121423874/
I’m in the mood to plant a crabapple.
Good Morning! :-)
My pawpaws are loaded with blossoms. Hope the arctic weather next week does not change that.
The big shrub replacement project was finished at 10 pm Thursday night. I needed a headlamp to finish digging the last shrub hole! The fence posts used to define the shrub beds mostly had to be replaced which meant cutting to fit - they look good. Two very old nandinas (in addition to the 14 30-35 yo azaleas) also had to be removed (like the red berries, hate the rest of the plant). I also transplanted 2 hydrangeas. We got 1/2 inch of rain during a thunderstorm yesterday so all the new & transplanted bushes are looking happy (for now).
The 2nd big project was constructing a roof for my SIL’s chicken run for a birthday present. It works, looks decent & she likes it. I need to make one “tweak” today & that should do it.
The grass in the fields took off this past week so I need to do significant mowing. I also need to weed my raised beds - they’re not too bad, but with the rain, I think what weeds are in them grew an inch last night! Something is getting planted this weekend, not sure what. I tried to start plants indoors & for whatever reason, had very poor results. I will probably direct sow & see what happens - for sure, I will have to buy veggies plants to have any sort of produce.
Trees are a renewable resource.
Timber harvesters plant more trees in the USA than any other group. By far more then they cut down.
Hopefully everyone is trying to catch up.
I would really like to try a pawpaw sometime. Alas, I haven’t been able to find them around here in the late summer. I’ve looked everywhere.
(I like 'em - A LOT! - I gotta plant some....)
I know Stark brothers will ship them. There are a couple of paw paw groups on Facebook but not the one I used to belong to. They are very difficult to transplant. I got 2 locally a couple of decades ago and 2 online. I got the online ones in the spring. They came in a regular square small black planter but it was about a foot long at least. They have a very long tap root. The online source I could not find anymore. Depending on where you are Ohio nurseries would have some.
We're still getting a bit of rain in SoCal which is not bad news - and things are starting to bloom now after our heavy rains.
This is a new rose I planted this year in honor of a dear friend, called "Our Lady of Guadalupe":
Geraniums are exploding in bloom (my mother's favorites so planted in her honor):
And, my wisteria decided to bloom - husband hacked at it for years because it gets under the roof of the garage - he even tried to pull it out by the roots, obviously with no luck!:
We've also had a lot of coyotes in our area recently, more than I've ever seen. There are signs up everywhere, almost on every corner. My animals aren't allowed out in my yard unless I am with them even though I have high fences around my property:
Happy Gardening! Happy Spring!
TO LINK BACK TO THE APRIL 8 - APRIL 14 2023 WEEKLY GARDEN THREAD
CLICK ON ANY APPLE TREE IN THIS PICTURE!
AND TO GO BACK TO DIANA'S NATIONAL GARDENING DAY THREAD LAST WEEK
CLICK ON THIS PICTURE!
I got my bucket potatoes and carrots started this week, and today just planted one row of onions, maybe 30-40 little baby plants.
It’s supposed to cloud up and rain the next few days so I figured it was better than planting them in the heat.
Too bad you can’t carry inn CA.
However, if you can get some mace or bear spray, I doubt the coyotes will be tattling non you. I bet that’s illegal, too, but hey, it’s better than not being able to defend yourself and if you don’t tell anyone.......
All About Jazz Apples - Minneopa Orchards minnetonkaorchards.com › jazz-apples
"September 29, 2022 - Nurseries cannot legally sell true Jazz apple trees, and any saplings claiming to be Jazzâ„¢ are most likely a similar but not identical tree. The growing conditions recommended for Jazz apples are trade secrets and part of the quality control required of all licensed growers."
Maybe consider some of the great heirloom apples that you will never see in a store that could grow in your area! Where do you live? (Maybe Diana will have a recommendation!)
https://www.jungseed.com
https://raintreenursery.com/collections/apple-trees
https://www.starkbros.com/products/fruit-trees/apple-trees
https://onegreenworld.com/product/coxs-orange-pippin-m-7-2/
https://onegreenworld.com/product/ashmeads-kernal-m-7-2/
Some other sources are listed at:
https://freerepublic.com/~pollard/#internetresources
As you may know, I managed a Garden Center for many, many years. We sold fresh-cut, locally grown Christmas Trees in season ; the bills don’t stop even if business slows down!
Whenever we’d have some Eco-Teen come in with their parents to get a tree, they’d be all frowny-faced about us ‘killing all of these trees.’
Yeah. Whatever Punk, LOL! (I never said it out loud, of course!)
I have sold thousands of potted trees through the years and have also planted 100’s more in my lifetime so far.
We planted 400 Black Hill Spruce seedlings for wildlife preservation on our farm in 2012; then we had a drought year. Hauled 800 gallons of water to them all; about 200 survived, which was amazing!
I walked up there just yesterday and they’re all 8-10’ tall already. It’s one of my favorite spots on our farm. :)
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