Saturday, September 6, 2008

Saving and Planting




Alex Shigo, a scientist with heart and verbal skills, who changed the way we think about trees, rots, and wounding, is often quoted. I like this quote best:
"Nothing is all good, all the time." He said this in context of a planting project in Hawaii, in response to a question, if I remember correctly, something like: "why don't we just plant more and more of the good trees?"

I went home that night and wrote about this, and came up with an analogy I think nobody else had, yet. I said in the Aloha Arborists Newsletter that planting more, and not making plans for long term care, is like having sex and not planning for children. It's fun, everyone feels good afterward, and the kids are on their own. It's irresponsible at best.

Stakes are left in place and girdle the trees. Watering is forgotten after the first month or so. Weed whips are seen regularly slashing away at the bases of trees making them prettier (nice! say the planters) and deader (details). 

I read a nice solution for staking in Tree Care Industry Magazine last Spring. I forget what issue. Rather than stake with long tied stakes above ground, the idea is to drive stakes right through the root mass,  and drive the top of the (2 foot long 2"x2") stake right into the ground. This way the stake does its work (better, in my estimation), is hidden, and does not require ties to hold the tree in place. For you non-arborists, tying and staking irresponsibly is a cause of twenty to forty percent of new tree death, depending on who you listen to.

I have planted about a dozen trees this year, using the method above. None of them has blown over. I use three stakes, going in three directions slanted downward. Nifty trick from an industry magazine.

An example of why it is not all good all the time to preserve trees is shown in the photos. In south east Portland Oregon, we are building lots of McMansions right up next to trees. If it is done right, you can preserve the magnificence of nature right outside the backdoor of this impossible to heat, space-wasting, toxic dump of a domicile. 

If it's done right. That means having an arborist on board from the blueprint stage onward, who protects the tree using a tree protection plan, includes fencing in specifications, and may be on site during mechanical excavation as well, to supervise cutting of roots, tunneling, or bridging over a critical root zone.

All this assumes that the tree in question is worth saving. The tree in this photo, photographed from the front of the overlarge dwelling, then from near the tree's base, is and was a hazard. It never should have been preserved closer than its height to any structure. If it were preserved, it could have been a lovely wildlife tree, and the family could have had their cheerios  and watched each morning as woodpeckers foraged for insects out the window, a safe distance
 away. And perhaps seen, over time, a raptor or two sitting in the dead branches, where the view of warm-blooded prey is best.

I am not suggesting that any tree, especially a hazard, is ever safe. Trees are seemingly unconcerned with safety. I have seen trees fall apart in forest situations and the limbs -- torn, broken, rotting -- put out new roots and colonize that space. Whoopee! The tree says. That was fun being tall. Lets just grow here, laying around, now.

If life hands them lemons, trees  make lemonade. Lemon trees are never handed lemons, they must photosynthesize and draw up water and such to make lemons, but that is another story.

When builders are handed lemons, in the form of unsafe and undesirable trees, they find a lemon of an arborist to tell them it is ok, so that they do not have to do any expensive and time consuming planting of trees to get the property past inspection. More municipalities are requiring trees now, because the benefits to watersheds (trees slow the movement of water, use some of it, and help slow erosion), wildlife (trees provide thermal and hiding cover for critters and sometimes humans), and aesthetics (homes with trees in their landscapes can be worth much more than those without). Trees are good, right? But nothing, not even a merrily photosynthesizing , well-fluted column of woody tissue and non-woody associations with a leafy bower above is all good. At least, not all the time.

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