 |
| "A-mal-gam" by Nick Cave. |
Happy Arbor Day! Did it sneak up on you, again? Or are you ready with the ... well, not a lot to do on Arbor Day. No gifts to give, no cards to send. No parties to throw unless you're a municipality, and even then, they celebrate by doing the same thing they do all year long: Put a few trees in the ground. It's like treating your wife to dinner at home and a TV show for her birthday.
It doesn't make sense. Love is elusive, fleeting, heartbreaking, yet Valentine's Day is huge. Trees are everywhere, permanent, uplifting. Yet we give them the cold shoulder. Why isn't Arbor Day a bigger deal?
"That's a really good question," said David Horvath, a certified arborist with the Davey Tree Expert Company. "It doesn't get much mention in the media. You guys aren't reporting on it."
Oh right. Our fault. Maybe so. This is my first Arbor Day column in 30 years. Horvath must have detected my air of injury, because he mused that lack of attention might be a good thing.
"We're doing a pretty good job, preserving trees," he said. "We don't have a lot of news stories about hundreds of acres being clear cut."
Not yet. That may be coming, with the Trump administration dismantling the U.S. Forest Service and going gaga for logging.
It's a good time to reaffirm our love of trees. Trees are cool, and very Chicago. How so? For starters, we have a direct, familial link to Arbor Day: J. Sterling Morton, who created Arbor Day in 1872 as a way to forest treeless Nebraska. Fifty years later, his son Joy Morton, founder of Morton Salt, created the Morton Arboretum on his country estate in west suburban Lisle.
Arbor Day was a state-by-state affair until 1970, when Richard Nixon established national Arbor Day as the last Friday in April (though states still celebrate at peak planting times. Texas Arbor Day is the first Friday in November).
The city of Chicago has about 3.5 million trees, and I wish I could tell you a dozen tree stories. Space limits us to one. In 1972, students voted for an Illinois state tree. The white oak won. At Austin High School, however, students disagreed, pooled their money — each chipped in a penny — and bought a black oak, which they planted in the school courtyard.
"The black student body felt a closer identification with this type of oak," the Chicago Daily News helpfully explained. (The tree, alas, is no longer there, according to the Chicago Public Schools. "No sign of the black oak tree," said Ben Pagani, of CPS, who added engineers were sent to scope out the situation).
To continue reading, click here.
Chicago does a terrible job managing the city owned parkway trees. For some insane reason they have now gone to a section by section tree trimming operation & won't trim a tree with a dead & dangerous branch that could break off in a storm & kill or injure someone. I found that out last fall when I called to report such a large dead branch & was told they don't do that anymore.
ReplyDeleteThey will however pick up any branches that break off & fall from a tree in a storm.
Just more incompetence from a mayor who takes his orders from the insane & out of control teachers union!
I understand people are frustrated with this different program but it makes sense to me when I heard why the change (which I believe pre-dated the current Mayor). Apparently the trees in some neighborhoods of the city were getting a ton of regular attention -- wealthy areas where people do a lot of gardening, pay attention to the health of trees, and know how to reach their Alder or Forestry Dept to have trees planted in their parkways (as I did), and get issues addressed. But many other neighborhoods -- those without such knowledge and resources and residents dealing with more pressing life & health issues -- got no trees planted and no trees managed for decades, which leads to further degradation of the area's appeal. Not a good system for the "City in the Garden."
DeleteSo now the City is mapped in grids that the Forestry Dept methodically goes through each area checking trees and planting more. Supposedly it means every single neighborhood - and possibly every tree - will get checked at least once every 3 years. And there is still the option to get attention to any tree that is posing a significant risk to humans or property. Contact your Alder and get a request for emergency attention to it. Good luck!
I remember getting a pin oak for Arbor Day one year at my school. Sadly, it did not live very long.
ReplyDeleteIf it makes you feel better, I planted a pin oak, early on in home ownership, and managed to kill it too.
DeleteMaybe it was the soil. A professor at NIU found that soil pH effected tree health. https://auf.isa-arbor.com/content/10/4/122
DeleteThe original landscape here was largely prairie with smaller portions offering scattered trees and closed canopy woods (determined by fire frequency) We are blessed by having forest preserve districts, which in Cook County alone protects 70,000 acres of mostly wooded land. Eight of the NE Illinois counties have forest preserves or the very similar conservation districts comprising 200,000 acres most of which are dominated by trees. (Not to mention federal, state, and park district holdings) So I totally agree that planting trees in urban and suburban areas should be embraced, but if one has a hankering for trees, the distance necessary to be in their midst is for most residents pretty small.
ReplyDeleteMy dad loved trees, so Arbor Day was a big deal in my family when I was growing up in Rockford - hmmm, I just remembered Rockford's nickname is The Forest City. I think the city had a park district event in the 1960s where you could just come pick out a sapling and take it home. We did this one year and planted it in the front yard: a Russian Olive. (We'd go browse at the event other years, after there were enough trees in our yard.) It was a beautiful tree that adorned our yard for years.
ReplyDeleteBoy, do female ginkgos stink! There were two big ones in the parkway of our place in Jeff Park. 50 feet tall, straight column trunks with perpendicular branches that stretched over the sidewalks and lawn, shiny green fan leaves all over.
ReplyDeleteIn the spring, the area smelled like rotting garbage. I didn't know the cause, so I cleaned out the gutter. Still smelled. A neighbor told me that the gingko "berries" were the problem.
One day as I came home, there was a half dozen older Asian men and women on the parkway. They were using long rakes to shake the berries onto sheets spread on the lawn. They had just about filled their plastic buckets.
I thought this was great and walked up to thank them and ask what they'd do with their harvest. I must have been a little too enthusiastic when I approached. They loaded the buckets, sheets, and rakes in their minivan and took off. I don't think they ever came back.
I admire ginkgos whenever I see them. On the hand, I detest mulberry trees.
Once the mulberries ripen, all the bird shit around me turns purple. I think the Northwestern Ry, planted mulberries along their rights of way, because that's where I see so many mulberry bushes & I'm just a block from the railroad.
DeleteWe live in a neighborhood of oak trees. It's almost like the houses sprouted in a grove of trees. Our house is one of the oldest, at 116 years. We've lost three oaks in the 25 years that we've been fortunate enough to live here, but there are two that sprouted from acorns out behind the garage that are doing quite well. The cool thing about living under a canopy is that if you don't run over the new growth with your lawnmower, you'll always live in a forest.
ReplyDeleteTREES!
ReplyDeletethey brought me most of my income during my working life. my oldest sons middle name is Trees. my youngests is Water. dont forget to water your trees. we are in a drought in chicago.
I often drive west on chicago avenue into oak park. they take good care of their glorious trees. on the west side of chicago on the other hand not so much . the stark difference is shocking when you cross Harlem .
just back in town from the high dessert where we have apricots on our trees this year. watering is the key. terrible drought out there. not many trees .
What drought in Chicago?
DeleteI blame society as a whole. We now have too many holidays. The following is a partial list of actual holidays celebrated on April 24th:
ReplyDeleteNational Arbor Day, Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, World Day for Animals in Laboratories, International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace, Action Day for Tolerance and Respect between People, National Pigs in a Blanket Day, National Hairball Awareness Day, Scream Day: A day for stress relief, National Skipping Day
Maple trees are a good choice for our area; lots of varieties and fast growing-oaks are very slow. Check with the Morton Arboretum for other suggestions. I remember all the elm trees on our block in Chicago when I was growing up; all gone now due to Dutch Elm disease.
ReplyDeleteYou should add The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben to your reading list. The subtitle is What They Feel, How They Communicate. Beautifully written.
ReplyDeleteNeil, that is a glorious sculpture. where did you find it?
ReplyDeleteMuseum of Contemporary Art, at the Nick Cave retrospective in 2022.
DeleteYou know who really loves trees? TreeKeepers. Every year hundreds of Chicago-area residents go through the excellent TreeKeepers training program hosted by Openlands Conservancy. We graduate as tree ambassadors, volunteers qualified to care for and protect trees.
ReplyDeleteSince doing the program in 2023, I've planted and pruned trees in city parks and neighborhood parkways, participated in tree inventories in various neighborhoods, advocated for trees in my ward and led Girl Scout troops in mulching trees in parks.
Trees make such a difference to the quality of life in our communities, especially in a time of climate change. Arbor Day is a great opportunity to think of how you can help the trees in your community thrive.
I loooooove that that program exists. And I hope it grows and attracts more people every year.
DeleteMaple trees leave helicopters seeds all over and mess up gutters.
ReplyDeleteA nice shout-out for the Morton Arboretum in today's column. I guess our membership there will have to count as my primary celebration of Arbor Day, aside from a walk in our city neighborhood, where the displays put on by various trees in the spring are so delightful, while being much too ephemeral, alas.
ReplyDeleteCan't argue with the choice of Maple or Gingko trees as favorites. NS, I suppose this is a silly question, given your extensive knowledge of the Botanic Garden and frequent visits, but are you familiar with the lovely group of Gingko trees in the courtyard by the Administration building? We stumbled into them on one of our explorations and that's become a special fall spot for us to check out when we're up there.
https://www.facebook.com/chicagobotanicgarden/posts/a-hard-frost-last-night-has-triggered-the-annual-ginkgodrop-unlike-many-deciduou/10155800077695699/
I don't get by the administration building much — if it's in the place I'm thinking off, in the far back. But I'll go take a gander when I can.
DeleteIt's definitely not someplace you just happen to stroll by. It's on the opposite side of the parking lots from the Visitor Center, right by Lake Cook Rd. #1 on this map, just north of Parking Lot 4 and the main entrance road. The courtyard that the gingkoes are in is actually on the north side of the building.
Deletehttps://www.chicagobotanic.org/visit/map
I read recently about the fact that there are precious metals on other planets and asteroids, formed as here on earth or through collisions between different celestial bodies. But nowhere other than earth are trees found.i understand the need for water and oxygen to grow trees, but it would seem to me that because trees are needed for our survival as a species, that they are worth more than gold. Plus they're nice to look at!
ReplyDeleteAlso, say a prayer for Richard M. Daley, who, in response to criticism, came back with, "What trees did they ever plant?"
ReplyDeleteThat was his father Richard J who said that!
DeleteSo Nixon was responsible...in 1970... for both Arbor Day and the EPA.
ReplyDeleteIn hindsight, he looks better and better, as he recedes further into history.
Sometimes, I even miss that old Dick.
His sole problem was his utterly out of control paranoia. That caused Watergate. He also wanted national health insurance & created the EPA, now being destroyed by a demented & deranged child rapist who Nixon would've hated! Even Reagan would've hated this current disaster in the White House!
DeleteI have huge trees towering above my house. If one were to come down it would smash it like a beer can. It cost a fortune to remove them or even have them trimmed. Last week a tornado touched down a couple miles away. It gets very unsettling this time of year.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, friends of mine bought a new house in a new development that was built on a farm field. Completely flat and no trees. No shade to shield you from the unrelenting sun. It reminds me of a colony on an alien planet.
Trees are a vital piece of the climate change puzzle...I believe 40% of available airspace in a typical residential neighborhood is an offset of carbon emissions from the area, and can locally lower air temperatures and assist with storm water management. They are also beautiful and enhance the structures they surround.
ReplyDeleteThere's an old meme in which the writer states Elon Musk is offering $100M to whoever invents a reliable and sustainable method to permanently and durably sequester carbon from the atmosphere and oceans, stating $100M for such a wonder would be a bargain. A commenter stated, "That's a tree. You're describing a tree."
Humans often make things harder than they need to be.