‘Connect people to trees.’ Tree Week shows how better tree canopy improves our lives.
“This is not our world with trees in it. It’s a world of trees, where humans have just arrived.” — Richard Powers, “The Overstory”
We can think of trees as our mystical living protectors, as solid as time, as selfless and loving as Shel Silverstein’s apple stump. Or we can think of them as our salvation to an overheated climate, capable of absorbing water and CO2. Or we can imagine them as another piece of our quest for social justice because trees are good for our minds and bodies, and where they dwindle, so do we.
It doesn’t matter what we think about trees, but it’s crucial that we think about them because they need our attention— protecting them, planting them, pondering the many ways they enrich our lives. That’s the main thought of the Lexington Tree Week organizers, at least, as they embark on the fourth annual week-long event. Think about trees , learn about them and then maybe you’ll feel compelled to do something for them.
“The basis behind Tree Week was to figure out ways to connect people to trees in ways they may not have thought of since childhood,” when they last climbed down from their favorite oak, explained Heather Wilson, Lexington’s City Arborist. To that end, starting Oct. 9, it includes contemplative tree walks, tree plantings, forest bathing, tree art, small trees for urban landscapes, conifers at Lexington Cemetery, a guided hike at Floracliff, the Kentucky Maple Syrup project! anything and everything to do with trees in our area.
Tree Weeks is one of those organic (forgive me) events, borne out of a series of groups, like the late Jake Gibbs’ non-profit Trees Lexington, and the Urban Tree Initiative housed at the University of Kentucky, egged on by the last survey of Lexington’s tree canopy in 2015. That found that the tree canopy covered 25 percent of the city’s core, below the national average and looking worse thanks to an aging pin oak population and the emerald ash borer, which has killed so many ash trees around the state. The report also found that the tree canopy provided $30.7 million in benefits annually — from carbon capture to improving stormwater runoff to generating savings on homeowners’ air-conditioning bills.
“In that 10 years we’ve lost some old pin oaks and ash trees but we’ve planted tons of trees,” Wilson said. That includes Reforest the Bluegrass, big initiatives by UK and the Fayette County schools to green up their campuses, and lots of sapling giveaways. This year’s city budget has funding for a new report on the canopy that will determine what kind of progress has been made.
The 2015 report also showed that the best tree canopy was in the richest neighborhoods, the worst in the poorest and most urban parts of the city. One challenge is that most of the plantable areas are on private land, like churches and people’s backyards. Thus the idea of personal connections that might inspire people to want more trees, plus the help to get them planted.
Persuading more people to plant more trees on their land “is a hard nut to crack,” said Mary Arthur, a forestry professor at UK and a member of the Urban Tree Initiative. “Our aim this year to center some of the discussion on climate change, and we’re also working to have more events in places that might draw more people in low income neighborhoods,” including a tree walk at African Cemetery No. 2.
This year Tree Week has expanded to Berea, Georgetown, Hazard and Paducah. The week concludes on Oct. 16 with Arbor Day at the Arboretum and the Tree Climbing Championship, with events scheduled for every day of the week in between. Just as we all feel better after a walk in the woods, so can Tree Week provide something for your soul, and most of all, for our trees.
This story was originally published October 5, 2021 at 1:11 PM.
