Tree Planting Responsibility, Shigo Quote

M

mollyruthb

I remember reading a quote, and I think it was Shigo, basically stating that if we plant a tree, we should be prepared to be responsible for it for the rest of our lives.
I am preparing a lecture for a landscape architecture firm, and want to leave folks with that notion. So important, I believe. Thanks!
 
Perhaps it was this?

"And the fox said to the little prince: "Men have forgotten this truth. But you must not forget. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed." From "The Little Prince" Antoine de Saint Exupery. Quoted on page one of Shigo's "Tree Pruning: A Worldwide Photo Guide"

Hope this helps, it is not exactly as you have stated but is close and infers the same sentiment.
 
That's just crazy talk. Sorry Alex. Trees take care of themselves just fine and the more help we give them the weaker they get. Natural selection is how trees became such magnificent plants. If a tree can't make it was the wrong tree in the wrong place, try again. There is always a species that can survive almost any location without ongoing human care. The less care required the better the tree.
 
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That's just crazy talk. Sorry Alex. Trees take care of themselves just fine and the more help we give them the weaker they get. Natural selection is how tree's became such magnificent plants. If a tree can't make it was the wrong tree in the wrong place, try again. There is always a species that can survive almost any location without ongoing human care. The less care required the better the tree.

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To a point yes if a tree is in it's natural environment, a forest setting, but when we take trees and transplant them in a yard or on the edge of a parking lot, they do need some care. Especially in the first year or two after planting. Most of the time we just need to make sure a newly planted tree gets enough water. I agree though site evaluation and tree selection are most important.
 
Of course some urban trees need some maintenance that's what we do. I was taking the concept of responsibility to the other extreme. The first 30,000 trees I planted already burnt in a forest fire. That's the way she goes. If I thought I could tame nature I would of stopped the fire.
 
I'm down with Alex on that one. Taming/controlling =>responsibility=>truth, and think we all agree that trees have great power.

Was Antoine pre-echoing Peter Parker's Uncle Ben: "With great power comes great responsibility."

Interesting to hear viewpoints ranging from the boreal forest to the urban grit.
boreality, if forest trees are by definition not tamed, then they and their planters are bereft of responsibility, so no worries!

The less care required, the better-adapted the tree. But all urban trees (near people's activities) need care, and trees are good, so arborists care for trees.

Orsomethinglikethat.
 
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I remember reading a quote, and I think it was Shigo, basically stating that if we plant a tree, we should be prepared to be responsible for it for the rest of our lives.

I am preparing a lecture for a landscape architecture firm, and want to leave folks with that notion. So important, I believe. Thanks!

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Thank you for stepping your first toe into the swirling waters of these forums. (Best welcoming metaphor I could do at the moment...)

I would like to expand your notion considerably; we are all honestly responsible for many things following our various interventions.

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Trees take care of themselves just fine and the more help we give them the weaker they get.

Boreality's comment above of taking it to the other extreme of If you help it, you will break it, is understandable, but his reality ought to be a simple recognition that nature still outnumbers us in spite of our having opposable thumbs and lusty business plans.

There is also a synergy of all those other occupants on our planet, along with an impressive total tinkering with some 400 million years of challenges. (In terms of trees, we’re nanoseconds in that timeline and have no influence yet on natural evolution).


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My sense of truth wanders in the direction of being responsible for the range between the edges of the obvious and the subtle. If I like my ideas of being alive, how do I not extend that to others around me, and then, oh no, to other similar living things, and, good God, so on, until I bump into the insights of John Muir’s connections to everything.


Practicality means I can’t intervene in everything, but I can’t escape those things I do touch or tame. Others escape quite handily if we talk of dead trees and cutting them down.

Living trees are a different matter however; the ones we find and those we plant. Almost by definition, landscape architects indeed plant, and your notion is really an imperative. Never let them retreat from that.

Go for it, and give them a lecture they’ll never forget.


Bob Wulkowicz

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PS: Here are some old note fragments; The Park is now named Cottontail Park; the Park is now 20 years old and still chugging along according to the 100 year plan.

Click at the top of this post where it says <u>Attachment</u>...
 

Attachments

I'm not saying both of you don't do good work. I'm saying more tree care equals more consumption and more impact on the enviroment you are trying make artificially natural.
It's like swimming upstream rather than drifting with the current of nature's flow.
 
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That's just crazy talk. Sorry Alex. Trees take care of themselves just fine and the more help we give them the weaker they get. Natural selection is how trees became such magnificent plants. If a tree can't make it was the wrong tree in the wrong place, try again. There is always a species that can survive almost any location without ongoing human care. The less care required the better the tree.

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I'm not saying both of you don't do good work. I'm saying more tree care equals more consumption and more impact on the enviroment you are trying make artificially natural.
It's like swimming upstream rather than drifting with the current of nature's flow.

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Good points.

There are trees, plants, landscape designs and management ideas available that do not need so much labor and cost to maintain. Too much effort is being put forth promoting high maintenance arboriculture. Greening our cities and landscapes with the right plant, right place, environmentally beneficial, low labor, low chemical usage, low fertilizer, low water requiring and low hazard makes a lot more sense. Take notice of those landscapes where the owner is smart enough to leave wooded areas around their property where hardly any maintenance is required except a little harvesting of firewood from dead and down trees.
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Thanks Old Oak Man. This quote is great!

As far as trees taking care of themselves, yes this is true-in nature. As far as our urban forest goes, we cannot simply select a root bound tree we no nothing about, plop it in the ground without understanding site and soil conditions, leave the root ball treated, pay little attention to correct irrigation and either over or under water it, and not revisit it to administer early structural pruning to address structural defects, to prevent large branches from being taken off or being broken by passing vehicles. This is completely irresponsible! What does the future look like for that tree? The average life of a street tree is 7 years. Our urban forests are shrinking. Trees are not reaching their full potential in the urban enviornment. We are pouring so much money into tree planting, but have little knowledge how to do so correctly. We all see failure after failure. What we can do is educate ourselves and each other. Alex and the Little Prince are indeed correct.
 
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Of course some urban trees need some maintenance that's what we do. I was taking the concept of responsibility to the other extreme. The first 30,000 trees I planted already burnt in a forest fire. That's the way she goes. If I thought I could tame nature I would of stopped the fire.

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Considering the OP is about a lecture to Landscape Architects, I find a lack of connection with the forest fire and 30,000 trees.

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Back to the OP ...

Good point.

If you don't mind quoting an Oregon arborist, one of the biggest flaws I see related to design and trees, is that landscape architects and designers rarely understand arboriculture / tree care.

Tree care and landscape care are virtually inseparable. Landscape architects should have a generous understanding of tree care. And likewise, arborists should have a generous understanding of understory plants and the needs of that.

The basic core of science and knowledge, aside from chainsaws and CAD, are very similar.

cool.gif
 
Genesis 1:28-31
English Standard Version (ESV)

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

That was the connection I suspected in the qoute to taming nature. I used the fire as evidence of nature being beyond our control. I consider this crazy talk, not the whole bible. The sooner we get beyond this the sooner the planet has a hope. Have we multiplied enough yet? 7 billion and each one consuming more than ever in history.

A believer's a believer I'm not trying to change that just consume less and be more efficient. In particular have a look at less polluting techniques for tree care. When taking care of a tree involves 3 big diesels idleing all day while leaking buckets hydraulic fluid, fertilizer and a couple trunk injections it doesn't make sense any more. Then there's the money that all costs.
 
beyond Genesis boreality

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I'm not saying both of you don't do good work. I'm saying more tree care equals more consumption and more impact on the enviroment you are trying make artificially natural.
It's like swimming upstream rather than drifting with the current of nature's flow.

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That's not necessarily true.

Psalm 1:3

"And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither ; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper"

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The word "river(s)" is from Hebrew roughly transliterated "peh'-leg" and refers to a canal, not a natural meandering river. So the verse is referring to an agricultural tree. In other words, agricultural trees were good enough to figuratively describe a blessed person whose mind, delight and meditation is "in the zone".

Most people I know put in an honest day's work. If people enjoy the labor they do, what difference does it make whether it's cooking food to eat, or maintaining trees?

Even a natural plot of land, say 1000 acres, would be altered in some way if someone wanted to "live off the land" naturally so to speak. Even if it's merely cutting paths to get from Point A to Point B.

That portion of Genesis also did not teach or command the man CAN'T plant trees in rows, or plant seeds in patches.

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Deuteronomy 28: 3, 4, 5

Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.

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Scripture states that people can be blessed in the CITY and in the FIELD. The context is agricultural. Whether one "swims upstream" or not, biblically, does not hinge on nature.

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Re: beyond Genesis boreality

Are you following all this mollyruthb? Nothing is simple in the off season.
I scored a couple of sweet removals today so I'll be happy for awhile. I can feel the new season starting.
 
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