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Category Archives: Ecological Landscape

Ecological Landscape, Education, Leaf Bowers

“Well, it’s because we simply don’t deserve what Charleston has.”

April 26, 2017 Jim Abbot Leave a comment

Earth Friendly Landscapes, Charleston

Eco-Lectric Landscape Maintenance, Bradenton, FL

A.I.R. Lawn Care, Montgomery County, MD

Terra Nova Ecological Landscaping, Santa Cruz

Property Whisperer, Phoenix

Clear Air Lawn Care, Boston

Clean Air Lawn Care, Dallas

Carbon Cutters, Rochester, NY

lawn service leaf blowers mow and blow

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Next week, an 88-year-old woman is having to leave the small Georgia town where her family has lived for eight generations. Her family tree has many branches: Hardemans, Stones, Sinquefields, Browns, Phillipses, Dennys, Whighams, Careys, and more. Her roots there are very deep. Of course, my mother’s story is just one of millions of small dramas that happen every day all over the world. Nature has an important role to play at times like this. It consoles us with its beauty and heartens us with its promise to endure, to outlive us. So, having a moment? A bad day or month? Go for a walk. Stand near a tree. You won’t regret it. . . . #nature #forestbathing #trees #forests

It’s so great to be planting again. 🌳 . . . #trees #streettrees #urbantrees #urbanforest #treeplanting #halesia #silverbell #nativeplants

Urban trees have a tough time of it. Compacted soil, baking heat, light reflected from odd angles, branches ripped by passing trucks, and lots of dog urine, to name a few of the challenges. And the stakes are high: human life and limb are at risk. Fortunately you don’t have to be an expert to note problems such as dead limbs overhanging the street, fungal growths on roots, dieback in the crown, large cavities, etc. THEN it’s time to call in an ASA-certified arborist to get advice. All cities and some towns have municipal arborists — remember, they have hard jobs coping with too few resources and dealing with frustrated people on a daily basis, so be kind. 🙂 . . . #trees #urbantrees #streettrees #urbanforest #treehealth #treeriskassessment #arborist #arboriculture

Okay, tree nerds, a challenge. I’ve got a line of seven crape myrtles here along the street. The five farthest away from me are thriving. The two closest are struggling. Why? And, no, we didn’t just forget to water them. The photo itself contains the vital clue. . . . #trees #streettrees #urbantrees #treeplanting #silviculture #arborist #arboriculture #horticulture #ecology #forestecology

It it just me, or do the rest of you agree that live oak (Quercus virginiana) is the world’s greatest tree species? It’s evergreen. It’s fast-growing when young (up to TWO FEET in a year). The typical form of a live oak is to grow twice as wide as tall. (Think of all those leaves exposed to sunlight.) And no joke, live oaks can live for centuries. If Quercus virginiana didn’t already exist, climate scientists would be working with botanists to create this species in a laboratory — the perfect tree to suck carbon out of the atmosphere and store it for the next few hundred years. What else? A live oak tree has sex with itself, so there’s that. It can hybridize with other oaks to take advantage of characteristics exhibited by each species. While we humans are cowering in our homes during a hurricane, live oaks are pretty much saying, “Bring it on!” (which could be important in an era of killer storms). They have a taste for salt, too: they can tolerate salt spray and even occasional saltwater flooding (which could be important in an era of rising seas). Burn a live oak to the ground? The trunk will replace it with a new tree (which could be important in an era of more devastating wildfires). And oh yeah. Drought tolerance? You guessed it: HIGH. Geez, what else? Live oaks are not finicky about soil types: acidic, alkaline, loamy, moist, sandy, clay … whatever. Their acorns (“mast”) feed wildlife. In their native habitat their limbs support ferns, orchids, etc. Will I live to see live oaks growing in Central Park or along the Charles River in Boston? Maybe. Global warning combined with the urban heat island effect is making northern cities a lot more like southern ones. Already Atlanta and New York City are in the SAME zone for plant hardiness: 7b. So what about it, tree people? Are we planting enough of these supertrees? (All photos by me, taken on Cumberland Island, GA, and in Inman Park, except the next to last in the series, of the Georgia co-champion live oak in Waycross, 78 ft tall and 161 feet in spread. Yeah, that’s right: a canopy twice as wide as the tallest trees in your neighborhood.) #trees #urbantrees #botany #climatechange #climatecrisis

“The complete process of sealing off infections chemically, by resins, through occlusions of callus and stemwood growth, and from the cell wall structures and densities of ray parenchyma, has been termed compartmentalization (Shigo 1984a)” (Ashton and Kelty, The Practice of Silviculture, 10th ed., 2018). As you can see, I removed a large limb from a beech tree in my back yard. From the margins of the wound, the tree is quickly generating callus — undifferentiated cells — to cover the cut and shut off the oxygen supply to the fungi that are already feeding on the wood. Meanwhile, it’s busy constructing a kind of “box” above, below, and on the inside of the wound, to contain the damage to as small an area as is optimal. We humans replace some, even most cells in our bodies multiple times in a lifetime. Trees are different. Every tree contains its entire history. Its response to injury is to find a way to contain it and to live on: a new ring of growth, a new branch, leaves a bit closer each year to the nourishing sunlight high above. Trees are not wise, but they do offer a kind of wisdom through metaphor and analogy. Did I ever mention that I just love trees? . . . #tree #trees #forest #forests #silviculture #arboriculture #botany #urbantrees #inmanpark

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