Trees for tomorrow

There is a quote that says "The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago.  The second best time is now."  This quote is often attributed as a Chinese proverb - probably not true, but I like the sentiment.

The Isabella Conservation District is currently accepting orders for its 2018 spring tree and shrub sale.  When people come into the office the first question they often as is "What grows fast?"  Most people have a very short-sighted approach to planting trees - a five-year mindset.  They want something to screen out their neighbors or they want to create instant "cover" for White-tailed Deer.  They want some magical tree that will reach 10 feet in one year;  will produce fruit in two years;  never loses its lower branches no how densely planted;  can be planted in standing water or fine sand;  tolerates both deep shade and direct sunlight;  can be left out of the ground for two weeks before being planted;  and will never need any care beyond plopping them in the ground.  Ideally these trees would cost pennies each.

Here's the secret - there is no magic tree that fits all of those criteria. 

Most of the people that want all of those magic qualities will buy a large quantity of one species (often a non-native such as Norway Spruce or Blue Spruce) and then come in the following year (or two or three years later to complain that half of them died.  Picking the right tree for the right location is too much work.

We try to talk them into selecting a wider variety of trees, a few pines or spruces for "cover", but also some maples and oaks for future food for wildlife.  The response is often "I'll be dead before an oak tree will make any acorns!"  I want yell at them that that is the entire point of planting trees.  It shouldn't be about instant gratification, instead it should be about the future.  There are heavily managed forests in Europe that have been productive for over a thousand years.  Why would anyone only look at the benefits that can be accrued from trees in five years?


There is another quote that sums up how we should think about trees.  This one is supposedly a Greek proverb (again probably not true).  "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."  

A final quote about planting trees comes to us from George Orwell.  Written in 1946, this passage come from the essay  "A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray".  Orwell is best known for his novels "Animal Farm" and "Nineteen Eighty-four", but it is his thoughts on trees that concern me right now,
"The planting of a tree, especially one of the long-living hardwood trees, is a gift which you can make to posterity at almost no cost and with almost no trouble, and if the tree takes root it will far outlive the visible effect of any of your other actions, good or evil."

Go plant a tree.  It's one of the biggest lasting marks you can make upon the world, and the only time better to do it than now has already passed.