The ultimate tree hugger
An unconventional arborist shares his knowledge.
This newsletter is part of Living Small’s monthly Living Landscapes about sustainable gardening. Living Landscapes is becoming it’s own newsletter in 2024: Sign up here!
My most-viewed Instagram story ever was a picture of a stump.
A couple weeks back, while running I came across a street tree that had been cut down. It wasn’t a remarkable tree or one that I particularly loved, but the loss felt huge: No more shade on that city corner, just a hot stretch of concrete. Looking at the rings in the slices of trunk I realized the tree was probably as old as the 1920s house in front of which it stood. I could see healthy buds on all the branches that hadn’t been carted away yet.
It nagged at me because I had a strong suspicion that the homeowner had requested to have the tree removed. I had already observed that they’d dug up all the shrubs and poured concrete to cover all the earth. Perhaps they were bothered by leaves and sap, maybe they longed for more light, or perhaps they were genuinely worried about the tree damaging their house.
I shared the photo of the stump and then a before and after of the house shot from the street, pulling the house image from Google Maps and wrote, “I bet they’ll miss its shade and stormwater absorption.” Those three images got more views and comments than anything I have ever posted. The responses were varied: Some people shared my grief over the loss of the tree. Others defended the homeowner and city, saying it probably “needed” to come down.
I’d been thinking about the necessity of removing trees after having been introduced to Basil Camu, one of the owners of Leaf & Limb and founders of the non-profit Project Pando, both based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Basil is the second-generation owner of his family’s tree care company, and he has completely changed how their business operates. (Maybe you read about him in the New York Times last week?)
I initially reached out to Basil about a story I was writing on snags (which are dead trees left standing). He declined to be interviewed because of the impending New York Times feature, but we arranged to chat by phone anyway. During our conversation, Basil told me about his path. “We just trimmed trees: We cut off branches, but we did not know how to properly prune them, so they could heal. I wanted to differentiate our business from other services, so I started to educate myself about it,” he says. “After learning a lot more about trees—and the deeper I went into soil ecosystems, I realized we needed to do things differently.” At the same time, Basil read The Responsible Company by Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia. “Those two things started changing my trajectory,” Basil says.
Since then, Basil and his family have changed almost everything about their business, including how they care for trees and their employees. Leaf & Limb no longer cuts down healthy trees and they’ve expanded to consult on ecologically-minded landscapes, including native meadows and “pocket forests.” Basil and his colleagues also started Project Pando, a nonprofit that collects seeds from native trees, grows them into saplings, and gives them away for restoration projects.
Most recently Leaf & Limb has self-published a book, From Wasteland to Wonder, that lays out how they believe we can heal the land. The ebook is available for free, and you can also order a hard copy for $10.75 (they start shipping on May 24). This book is a fantastic primer on ecological stewardship.
Circling back to my mourning of the lost tree at the top of this newsletter, Basil included a section in the book that promotes saving trees—even elderly ones. “By saving an existing tree we preserve all the benefits generated by that tree—soil, water, carbon, and outrageous diversity. We also save the money we might have spent on removing it,” he writes. Basil has graciously allowed me to excerpt this portion of the book in the newsletter.
I also strongly encourage you to read Margaret Roach’s profile of Basil, ‘Why One Man Runs a Tree Service That Won’t Cut Down Dead Trees’. I’m hoping that you’ll all spread the word that most of the time, a tree does not need to come down.
Text excerpted from From Wasteland to Wonderland by Basil Camu
After many years of working in the tree service industry, I have heard many unfounded fears and misinformation when it comes to trees and the supposed need to cut them down. Here are the concerns I hear most often and why they are not generally concerning. If in doubt, please hire a trained professional with one or multiple of the following credentials: ISA Certified Arborist, ISA Tree Risk Assessment Qualification (TRAQ), ISA Board Certified Master Arborist, and ASCA Registered Consulting Arborist.
“I saw my tree swaying in the wind (or a storm) and I’m worried it’s going to fall on my house!”
Tree movement is a good thing! They are supposed to move. As they move, trees grow stronger by developing something called response growth. Think about how we humans work our bodies to build muscle: we lift things, push things, and move around. Although the physiology is very different, the concept is the same: When trees move in the wind they grow stronger. In addition, trees have all sorts of amazing structural features that allow them to withstand high winds, such as leaves that reconfigure into cones to minimize drag, a high twistiness-to-bendiness ratio in the trunk, and tensile buttressing, to name a few.
In the face of a hurricane, tornado, or major wind event all bets are off, even for the strongest and most healthy trees. And even if we have no trees on our property, that storm system can still drop trees and branches from other sites onto our house or building. I have personally witnessed this on multiple occasions during various storms here in North Carolina. All this to say, there is no reason to remove a tree because of the possibility of extreme weather and most certainly no reason to remove a tree because it sways in the wind.
“The tree is too close to my house. I’m afraid it will fall and cause damage—and maybe kill someone!”
Live trees have springy branches full of leaves that act as sails when they fall. They tend to fall more slowly and land with less impact, creating less damage. Buildings rarely collapse; roofs are strong and are designed to protect those living and working below. In my experience, the most serious damage occurs when live trees puncture the roof and rain enters that hole, creating internal water damage. Dead trees are different—they fall with force. If these are located near a building or house and could cause harm, they should be removed. For those worried that a tree will fall and kill someone we love, the chances of this happening are extremely low. To put the risk into perspective, a review of mortality data in the United States found that nationwide there were 407 deaths from wind-related tree failure during the13-year period from 1995 to 2007. At the individual level, that comes out to about a one in 690,000 chance each year. Compare this to your chances of dying in a motor vehicle accident (one in 9,000). These risks are far greater, yet many of us think little of driving multiple times every day.
“That tree is HUGE! It scares me so much—it needs to be cut down.”
The huge trees are generally the oldest trees. They have survived many years and weathered many storms. They have developed great strength and resilience in the face of many challenges. These are usually the safest trees we should fear the least. This assumes they have not been damaged or disturbed recently. An example of this would be a construction project nearby that caused damage to the tree’s root system. This warrants closer inspection.
“I want to thin out some trees to increase the health of the largest trees.”
It is normal for trees to grow in dense stands. This is typical in forests. Trees are stronger and healthier in groups than they are as individuals. In groups, their roots interlock and increase their holding power within the soil. They are less likely to blow over. From a safety and health aspect, thinning trees creates issues. It does not solve them. Better to let the trees sort things out among themselves.
“I need to remove the tree because it is at the end of its lifespan.”
A tree does not reach the end of its lifespan unless it has a fatal health issue or a structural defect that could cause it to fall and create harm to those nearby. Does this tree have such an issue? Could the issue be addressed by improving its structure or health? [Basil shares how to do these things in Chapters 12 and 14.] In the absence of an issue, trees live a very long time. Maples can grow to be 400 years old in the wild. Some pine species here in North Carolina can reach ages of 200 to 500 years. There are oaks in the UK that are over 1,000 years old. The point of all of these examples is that there is either nothing to worry about or there are better, cheaper solutions available than removing the tree.
If you want to know about trees with problematic roots or trees that you should potentially worry about, I encourage you to download Basil’s excellent book, which is jam-packed with useful information for homeowners and professionals alike.
We need more people like Basil doing this work, and more books like his!
Related post from the archive:
Last week’s most-clicked link was this article on gas stoves in small spaces.
3 More Things
The best small space I saw last week
This small Stockholm apartment has great, pure color—but not too much. I love the unexpected places color pops up in this meticulously-planned small space like the egg yolk yellow roller shades.
Are traditional lawns going out of style?
This hefty New York Times article titled ‘Lawns Draw Scorn, but Some See Room for Compromise’ (with a serious list of landscape designers quoted!) gives me hope that the anti-manicured lawn movement is going more mainstream.
A dreamy California garden
Chef Sara Kramer’s Echo Park garden is just delightful, thanks to a thoughtful landscape design by Terremoto. (It feels like everyone in L.A. has one of those sunken hot tubs these days). Terremoto was also mentioned in this FT article on gardens designed for children.
One last thing: A secret ceiling.
Thank you for continuing to hit hard on this! I posted the other day that we left up two snags in our small yard. A family of Red-headed woodpeckers made a nest in one. I can see their little heads peeping out during the day. But it is my family's pet peeve that trees come down. They come down all over our neighborhood, which dates to around the late 19-teens. Some of the trees are decades old and still perfectly healthy. We walked by a stump this morning - a tree that had been perfectly healthy. My son wanted to cry. He gets infuriated with this. I hope he goes on to use that fury in the way Basil has.
Thanks for sharing Basil's story. We need more people like him in the world! It reminds me of something you've written before--that many people's jobs can have a climate angle/effect if you choose to make it so.