I'm always heartbroken when trees are cut down. I live in a neighborhood that was developed from farmland in the 1950s and many of the trees planted by the original developers, mostly maples and locusts, are being cut down and nothing planted in their place. The neighborhood has much less shade. I haven't heard owls calling at night in a few years and they used to call all the time. There was an undeveloped tract behind the houses across the street from us that had a marshy area and a vernal pool and the spring peepers used to sing there. The trees were all cut down and a new street paved and new houses are going up and the peepers are silent. We are all so sad.
I hear you there... all sorts of great research from the last few years about the human health benefits of tree canopy cover and shade, along with energy costs, and especially ecological well-being. It's a weird moment when you realize that you hear fewer bird songs and leaves moving with the wind than before when that sort of thing occurs. I'm an eternal optimist but the explosion of those types of tree-less neighborhoods in our area is a great cause of concern for me!
When I was 9 years old, living in North Georgia, there was an ice storm that was catastrophic for the trees. I remember lying in bed, probably in tears, as I listened to the pines in the thicket breaking one after the other from the load of ice. That pine thicket had been my favorite place on the farm.
But your observation made me think about what old established oaks represent in Chattanooga. I think that established trees go along with wealth, clearly not all the time there are plenty of established trees in poor neighborhoods. But as we make way for new housing, especially for affordable housing (because we are pushing people out of the inner city that is being gentrified), a lack of old trees is a given, often a lack of ANY trees at all is common. When I think about driving up into North Chattanooga to the richest area that we have, there are so many old established trees it's really quite amazing. Or up on Missionary Ridge, which is my favorite part of town. Not just established trees, but what feels like a rooted-deep forest.
I also thought of the truth that you explore here that losing trees feels like losing history and grounding. A couple houses down from us, I don't remember exactly what happened, maybe a lightning strike, maybe it was hit by a car, but this old oak went down and the landscape of the street is forever changed. But as you have observed here, in time we will forget all about it.
Actually, before I read your post, I was thinking about trees, thinking about the "Lone Tree" in a pasture somewhere, the lone tree that flourishes all by itself. Maybe because it doesn't have other trees around it. Maybe it isn't lonely at all, maybe it feels quite privileged to have all of that sunlight for itself. I was wondering what it would feel like, to live on a pasture all by myself.
Trees represent stability and stability represents a kind of wealth I cannot aspire to, at least in my town. But there is an old, impossibly tall tree in my backyard. It needs to be taken down. It is choked with ivy. But the squirrels frolic up there, birds rest there from time to time.
I guess I'm waiting for it to fall. But not on my house. Let it fall on someone else's house. Let it have its own way. How selfish is that? Am I that selfish?
But we've lived here for over thirty years. So far, so good.
Which brings me to the selfishness of trees. Behind our house there's a small ridge and there are two trees that have outdone all the other trees and grown very tall, sucking up more than their fair share of sunlight. I don't know much about trees. The very sad dogwood trees in my front yard are evidence of this. But I wonder how greedy trees like the ones on the ridge behind my house will eventually affect the little woods up there. And how it would feel to live here with no woods on that ridge, nothing but a few greedy trees.
Thanks so much for your thoughts and points here, Rebecca! Very well said about the connections between tree cover and canopy, often tied to socioeconomic conditions across neighborhoods. We’re certainly seeing a surging human population here in Spartanburg and in the Upstate of South Carolina.
With high home prices and interest rates right now, we’re seeing so many new housing developments for “starter homes” popping up on the periphery of town without much in the way of tree cover after the construction is finished and existing forests are mowed down. Meanwhile, our downtown neighborhoods are full of beautiful old oaks, walnuts, and maples.
There’s some great research and work out there on the role that tree canopy plays in everything from human health and mental well-being to children’s performance in school to rates of things like anxieties and stress-related issues that’s making an impact in some development decisions in places like Raleigh-Durham and Columbia, SC as well!
One of my professor pals at NC State, who is working on these sorts of initiatives, made a great remark in an email conversation once that “trees can be pretty much jerks, just like us,” as we discussed competition for resources and sunlight. That made me laugh, and I think he’s right!
But for the most part, there is the flip side of trees represented in great works like The Hidden Life of Trees, Light Eaters, and especially Simard’s Finding the Mother Tree, which goes into the “altruistic” (not to project human sympathies on trees) in wonderful details about mycorrhizal and fungal networks as well as sharing of resources and information about pests, etc. Highly recommend if you’re interested!
Simard has a new book just out named When the Forest Breathes, and I’m looking forward to diving in to it (sitting here on my desk) as soon as I hit my own reading goals this month in my comprehensive exams readings for my PhD!
Thanks again for your note and thoughts (and yes, Missionary Ridge is beautiful!).
It is sad the ease people cut down trees. Like you said sometimes there are goid reasons, like when trees are diseased and dying. But often it happens because of precived astetics or ease of access.
I think that it has indeed something to do with how we precive or see trees, and plants in general. In that we sort of forget that they are alive, living creatures that are more than an individual. They are an ecosystem on itself.
Great angle and the grief part is certainly there (especially when trees are killed in a seemingly ruthless or uncaring way). I keep waiting for the Lorax to show back up.
Right? That was always one of my favorite parts of teaching middle school life science and AP Enviro Science for 20 years... helping young people realize the enormity of what we don't usually perceive about trees and our vegetal kin, like the incredible complexity of root systems and mycorrhizal networks!
This is happening to a tree across the street from me right at this moment! There is a dying tree that Mississippi kites roost on every morning, and I get to greet them as I head to work. But when I got home today (30 minutes ago), the chain saws were buzzing and many of the branches were no longer there. The grief is real.
I am glad to have saved this article but sad that it is so very timely.
Oh that's heartbreaking... especially when creatures like kites are making use of a snag. The utility and purpose is there even if our human perception doesn't understand what is happening b/c we turn our attention other ways.
Sam! Going through similar wonderings here and attempting an essay. We’ve had cable, energy and state forest chopping for the past three months. Then my neighbor did a clear cut. I am stunned. Suzanne Simard’s latest book details the damage to the forest floor.😞
Fun synchronicity... just ordered When the Forest Breathes last week to read now that my coursework is all done, and it's sitting here on my desk waiting for me!
Yeah, that experience of watching the trees come down yesterday had my wheels turning about psychology and human perception, and I had to get something down while it's still raw, along with news about the Forestry Service lately, etc. I think the perception part of how we think of trees is so important to how we move ahead in the coming years, and I am so thankful for people like you and Simard who are doing such important work in helping us think differently (or at least thoughtfully!).
I'm always heartbroken when trees are cut down. I live in a neighborhood that was developed from farmland in the 1950s and many of the trees planted by the original developers, mostly maples and locusts, are being cut down and nothing planted in their place. The neighborhood has much less shade. I haven't heard owls calling at night in a few years and they used to call all the time. There was an undeveloped tract behind the houses across the street from us that had a marshy area and a vernal pool and the spring peepers used to sing there. The trees were all cut down and a new street paved and new houses are going up and the peepers are silent. We are all so sad.
I hear you there... all sorts of great research from the last few years about the human health benefits of tree canopy cover and shade, along with energy costs, and especially ecological well-being. It's a weird moment when you realize that you hear fewer bird songs and leaves moving with the wind than before when that sort of thing occurs. I'm an eternal optimist but the explosion of those types of tree-less neighborhoods in our area is a great cause of concern for me!
When I was 9 years old, living in North Georgia, there was an ice storm that was catastrophic for the trees. I remember lying in bed, probably in tears, as I listened to the pines in the thicket breaking one after the other from the load of ice. That pine thicket had been my favorite place on the farm.
But your observation made me think about what old established oaks represent in Chattanooga. I think that established trees go along with wealth, clearly not all the time there are plenty of established trees in poor neighborhoods. But as we make way for new housing, especially for affordable housing (because we are pushing people out of the inner city that is being gentrified), a lack of old trees is a given, often a lack of ANY trees at all is common. When I think about driving up into North Chattanooga to the richest area that we have, there are so many old established trees it's really quite amazing. Or up on Missionary Ridge, which is my favorite part of town. Not just established trees, but what feels like a rooted-deep forest.
I also thought of the truth that you explore here that losing trees feels like losing history and grounding. A couple houses down from us, I don't remember exactly what happened, maybe a lightning strike, maybe it was hit by a car, but this old oak went down and the landscape of the street is forever changed. But as you have observed here, in time we will forget all about it.
Actually, before I read your post, I was thinking about trees, thinking about the "Lone Tree" in a pasture somewhere, the lone tree that flourishes all by itself. Maybe because it doesn't have other trees around it. Maybe it isn't lonely at all, maybe it feels quite privileged to have all of that sunlight for itself. I was wondering what it would feel like, to live on a pasture all by myself.
Trees represent stability and stability represents a kind of wealth I cannot aspire to, at least in my town. But there is an old, impossibly tall tree in my backyard. It needs to be taken down. It is choked with ivy. But the squirrels frolic up there, birds rest there from time to time.
I guess I'm waiting for it to fall. But not on my house. Let it fall on someone else's house. Let it have its own way. How selfish is that? Am I that selfish?
But we've lived here for over thirty years. So far, so good.
Which brings me to the selfishness of trees. Behind our house there's a small ridge and there are two trees that have outdone all the other trees and grown very tall, sucking up more than their fair share of sunlight. I don't know much about trees. The very sad dogwood trees in my front yard are evidence of this. But I wonder how greedy trees like the ones on the ridge behind my house will eventually affect the little woods up there. And how it would feel to live here with no woods on that ridge, nothing but a few greedy trees.
(btw, I grew up on Temperance Hall Road)
Thanks so much for your thoughts and points here, Rebecca! Very well said about the connections between tree cover and canopy, often tied to socioeconomic conditions across neighborhoods. We’re certainly seeing a surging human population here in Spartanburg and in the Upstate of South Carolina.
With high home prices and interest rates right now, we’re seeing so many new housing developments for “starter homes” popping up on the periphery of town without much in the way of tree cover after the construction is finished and existing forests are mowed down. Meanwhile, our downtown neighborhoods are full of beautiful old oaks, walnuts, and maples.
There’s some great research and work out there on the role that tree canopy plays in everything from human health and mental well-being to children’s performance in school to rates of things like anxieties and stress-related issues that’s making an impact in some development decisions in places like Raleigh-Durham and Columbia, SC as well!
One of my professor pals at NC State, who is working on these sorts of initiatives, made a great remark in an email conversation once that “trees can be pretty much jerks, just like us,” as we discussed competition for resources and sunlight. That made me laugh, and I think he’s right!
But for the most part, there is the flip side of trees represented in great works like The Hidden Life of Trees, Light Eaters, and especially Simard’s Finding the Mother Tree, which goes into the “altruistic” (not to project human sympathies on trees) in wonderful details about mycorrhizal and fungal networks as well as sharing of resources and information about pests, etc. Highly recommend if you’re interested!
Simard has a new book just out named When the Forest Breathes, and I’m looking forward to diving in to it (sitting here on my desk) as soon as I hit my own reading goals this month in my comprehensive exams readings for my PhD!
Thanks again for your note and thoughts (and yes, Missionary Ridge is beautiful!).
It is sad the ease people cut down trees. Like you said sometimes there are goid reasons, like when trees are diseased and dying. But often it happens because of precived astetics or ease of access.
I think that it has indeed something to do with how we precive or see trees, and plants in general. In that we sort of forget that they are alive, living creatures that are more than an individual. They are an ecosystem on itself.
Exactly! I think shifting perception (and imagination) is key to getting us out of our current predicaments in what we call human culture.
I can relate to that visceral feeling you describe, the unsettling. I attribute it to grief.
Great angle and the grief part is certainly there (especially when trees are killed in a seemingly ruthless or uncaring way). I keep waiting for the Lorax to show back up.
There is definitely an underappreciated spirituality to trees. And biologically, the crazy part is how much of the organism is actually underground.
Right? That was always one of my favorite parts of teaching middle school life science and AP Enviro Science for 20 years... helping young people realize the enormity of what we don't usually perceive about trees and our vegetal kin, like the incredible complexity of root systems and mycorrhizal networks!
This is happening to a tree across the street from me right at this moment! There is a dying tree that Mississippi kites roost on every morning, and I get to greet them as I head to work. But when I got home today (30 minutes ago), the chain saws were buzzing and many of the branches were no longer there. The grief is real.
I am glad to have saved this article but sad that it is so very timely.
Oh that's heartbreaking... especially when creatures like kites are making use of a snag. The utility and purpose is there even if our human perception doesn't understand what is happening b/c we turn our attention other ways.
Sam! Going through similar wonderings here and attempting an essay. We’ve had cable, energy and state forest chopping for the past three months. Then my neighbor did a clear cut. I am stunned. Suzanne Simard’s latest book details the damage to the forest floor.😞
Fun synchronicity... just ordered When the Forest Breathes last week to read now that my coursework is all done, and it's sitting here on my desk waiting for me!
Yeah, that experience of watching the trees come down yesterday had my wheels turning about psychology and human perception, and I had to get something down while it's still raw, along with news about the Forestry Service lately, etc. I think the perception part of how we think of trees is so important to how we move ahead in the coming years, and I am so thankful for people like you and Simard who are doing such important work in helping us think differently (or at least thoughtfully!).