trees – Black and White

Matilda and the Bur oak branch

dog and q macrocarpa — in the field of 100 oaks

differential emergence

bare bur oak — Microclimate, soil, genetics, on board afflictions. This Bur oak has yet to leaf out.

Fifty feet away is another individual who has had a flush of growth, producing new stems replete with leaves. Nature is an enduring mystery.

quercus rubra

quercus rubra

quercus rubra — Hard to take the color out of this one.

quercus montana

chestnut oak — The reportage blaming lack of tree canopy on redlining 60 years ago is delusive. Anyone with a trowel can achieve 80% canopy in half that time. Planting trees is cheap and easy. The main requirement for establishing trees is belief in the future.

Arlington

an oak and soldiers — An oak and soldiers.
Visiting Arlington yearly should be a required activity for all members of the Executive branch.
And the rest of us.

Street Trees

STL — There is a concept in urban street tree gardening called tree stocking. The term refers to tree density. If you plant a tree every thirty feet or so, you end up with continuous limbs and leaves over the street. A canopy street! The trees shade the asphalt, they shade the sidewalk. It is not rocket science. Garrett Street. used to be a canopy street. It was a great place to walk.
You can start a tree in a flowerpot. Put it in the ground with a tube around it. There is a prevailing newspaper wisdom that neighborhoods don’t have trees because of structural racism. Certainly that is 5% true. The City of Charlottesville has demonstrated a pronounced reluctance to plant trees in the public ROW. Why is that? I don’t know.
If you like shade, if you like trees, plant one a year on your street every year for ten years. Plant noble native trees like these Sycamores in Saint Louis. The planting will transform the neighborhood, it will transform your life.

Read Gregory McPherson’s article about urban trees.
In 1975 Charlottesville had a Street Tree Planting plan, never happened.
2014, the trees on Garret started to fall.
Why Trees Matter by Jim Robbins. 2013

street trees

Paris street — The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is an avenue in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, 1.9 kilometres (1.2 mi) long and 70 metres (230 ft) wide, running between the Place de la Concorde in the east and the Place Charles de Gaulle in the west, where the Arc de Triomphe is located. It is known for its theatres, cafés and luxury shops, as the finish of the Tour de France cycling race, as well as for its annual Bastille Day military parade. The name is French for the Elysian Fields, the place for dead heroes in Greek mythology. It is commonly regarded as the “most beautiful avenue in the world”.–Wikipedia

Platanus occidentalis

sycamore

Acer saccharinum

Like most maples, silver maple can be variably dioecious (separate male or female trees) or monoecious (male and female flowers on the same tree) but dioecious trees are far more common. They can also change sex from year to year.

Native Americans used the sap of wild trees to make sugar, as medicine, and in bread. They used the wood to make baskets and furniture. An infusion of bark removed from the south side of the tree is used by the Mohegan for cough medicine. The Cherokee take an infusion of the bark for cramps, dysentery, and hives. They boil the inner bark and use it with water as a wash for sore eyes. They also take a compound infusion of the bark for “female trouble” and cramps. They take a hot infusion of the bark for measles, and use the tree to make baskets, for lumber, building material, and for carving.– Wikipedia

respect the fungus

and the mycorrhizae