Urban Growth

“Heritage Trees Battle Climate Change”

wrote Mark and Ben Cullen ~ published recently in The Hamilton Spectator.

Intrigued by colour photos and their writing, I share a few excerpts with you.

There is a single best answer to the question:

What can we do about climate change?

A study published in July's Science magazine revealed ~ there was one solution to Climate Change:

Plant Trees!

“The geographic area for a trillion trees covers an area roughly the size of continental United States and Russia combined. This one-solution idea, only underscores the importance of trees among a long list of necessary measures. It is remarkable how much we have leaned about the functions of trees.

We know that they talk to one another ~ communicating bad news

when when an insect or disease infestation arrives in a tree community.

They support one another in ways that were previously unimagined,

through interconnected roots and symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi.

Environmentally, we know this for certain.

“Our oldest and largest trees are performing yeoman's service when it comes to producing oxygen... capturing carbon...and filtering toxins out of rainwater. The big neighbourhood trees are working for you today ~ the young ones are growing into the environmental workhorses of the next generation.

So, why aren't we doing more to protect 'heritage trees'?

“The good news: There is a heritage tree program in Ontario, managed by Forests Ontario in partnership with the Urban Forests Council. To sign up for a tree consideration go to the Forests Ontario website....select the community engagement page...then click on 'in the spotlight'.

Once you have applied for heritage tree designation,

a trained professional will visit the tree and provide a recommendation

to the heritage panel at Forests Ontario.

We think it is time for Ontario, indeed Canada ~ to create designation

for old, useful trees that are both culturally and ecologically significant.”

At Peace Among the Plants

With many flowers and mini-gardens, Chris Schofield is growing

great new concepts in one of Canada's oldest municipal cemeteries.

Cathy Renwald submitted glorious photos of gardens at the Hamilton Cemetery on York Boulevard.

A plant lover, since he was a kid, Schofield went to work

for a tree service...Connon Nurseries...and now the cemetery.

The steep sandy hills have been planted with hydrangeas, ornamental grasses,

rhododendrons, beeches and hemlocks.

Begonias and elephant ears surround the memorial to Westinghouse workers

who served in wartime.

When searching for a poem to attest this writing,

I was privileged to locate Robert Frost's Birches.

Never have I read this poem, perhaps, never have you.

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay

As ice storms do. Often you must have seen them.

Loaded with with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain, They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises and turn many-coloured

As the stir cracks and and razes their enamel.

Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells.

Shattering and avalanching on the snow crust ~

Such of heaps of broken glasss to sweeep away

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They ae dragged to the withered bracken by the load.

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed.

So low for long they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Yeears aferwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter of fact about the ice storm,

I shold prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch the cows ~

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball.

Whose only play was what he found himself.

Summer or winter and could play alone.

One by one, he subdued his father's trees

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them.

And not one but hung limp, and not one was left

For him to conquer. He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise.

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches

And so I dream of going back to be.

It's when I'm weary of considerations.

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it and one eye is weeping

From a twig's having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth a while

And then come back to it and begin over.

May not fate wilfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:

I don't know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go climbing a birch tree.

And cliimb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more.

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back

One could do worse than being a swinger of birches.

Written by Merle Baird-Kerr...September 28, 2019

To reply: mbairdkerr@cogeco.ca