If you travel through cities that may have existed early in our countries history you may have noticed many majestic beautiful mature trees. There was a time when people didn’t worry about how big a tree got when they planted it. It is thanks to this that we have these areas of beautiful tree canopy in our older cities.
The Case for Large Trees
The full sized versions of native trees produce oxygen, sequester carbon, cool the air through shading and evaporative cooling, slow rain water to prevent erosion and provide an atmosphere that has been scientifically shown to improve people's mental states.
Most of our nursery grown tree cultivars are selected because they are narrow. This means they will not spread and do the ecological work that the straight species would do.
Today the trees that we buy at nurseries and garden centers are most often cultivars. Cultivars are cultivated varieties that only exist due to the work of human hands. We take red maples Acer rubra which in their straight species state are mighty spreading shade trees. and we select for diminutive dwarf type trees such as 'October Glory', 'Autumn Blaze' or 'Red Sunset' and these become the primary trees that are planted in modern landscapes. So we are planting a dwarf landscape in our cities and subdivisions that in time will never reach the majestic maturity of tree canopies in cities like Boston or other older cities.
There was a time when people didn’t worry about how big a tree got when they planted it. It is thanks to this that we have these areas of beautiful tree canopy in our older cities.
I advocate for planting straight species trees in our landscapes. A straight species Willow Oak Quercus phellos can become a mighty tree in the future reaching up to 100 feet tall and 60 feet wide. A straight species Red Maple likewise can become a 60 foot tall tree with a 50 foot canopy or more. Straight species conifers such as are native pine trees can become mighty trees in the future.
Straight species trees do ecological work. The full sized versions of native trees produce oxygen, sequester carbon, cool the air through shading and evaporative cooling, slow rain water to prevent erosion and provide an atmosphere that has been scientifically shown to improve people's mental states. The more diminutive cultivated versions of these trees will never do as much environmental work as their straight species predecessors.
View of forests and mountains from Blue Ridge Parkway.
Many of us did not grow up here yet we moved to Western North Carolina because we love the mountains in the green canopy that rise like green waves on its undulating hills. So why would we choose to make our built environments to look like Florida? Why not plant our neighborhoods in our city streets to match the beauty of our surrounding mountains?
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