Adapting your gardening and thinking for planetary climate change is critical to helping our community filter polution and our planet breath.
With countries around the world industrializing and joining the international arena with goods and services the need for planting, managing and maintaining the remaining trees, natural forests and community green spaces will be critical in the fight against global warming. This fight must start at home. Each and every one of us needs to plant with a much wider view in mind. Not only are we designing and planting for ourselves anymore. We need to consider the impacts of our planting a hundred years ahead. With forward thinking we have a greater opportunity to secure the homes and environments our great grandchildren will inhabit. So what does all this mean for right now? Winter is upon us. There is so much work to be done and nature may not always work calmly by our side.
We recently were devastated by a super-storm by the name of Sandy. Thousands of trees destroyed. Trees that may have been a hundred years old or more. In my neighborhood alone, hundreds of trees that where at least 60 years old felled by this recent natural disaster. What is the plan to begin giving our communities back their lost trees. The new trees have to not only be more resilient but need to have the potential to grow, spread and manage themselves with minimal assistance from man. Ginko and Beech are the two names that come to mind as planting choices but both varieties of tree need time and developing care. So many communities care simply for immediate gratification with no consideration of long term management costs and environmental impact.
Here on Long Island in New York we have London Plain Trees, American Sycamore, Pin Oaks and a variety of Maples. With only a minimal amount of consideration the future of Long Island’s landscape can be stronger and more resilient. Here is where we stand and without public voices the fate of our treelined roads will be left to individuals who care only for budgets. Most of the decision makers don’t even live in our neighborhoods. We need our own communities planting their own street trees to demonstrate to future generations commitment to our own environment.