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Jan 07, 2024

Tree Talk: Now is the time to grow

It’s raining while I write this. A steady soaking rain that brings the world of

It's raining while I write this. A steady soaking rain that brings the world of plants out of dormancy and into life during the spring.

In a rush of budding, sprouting and flowering, trees are taking advantage of warmer days to do what they love to do. Grow. Trees have an amazingly strong will to live, and with life comes growth, and with growth comes knowledge. Trees are gaining knowledge all the time. Even though they don't have a mind by traditional standards, they are not growing mindlessly, but with purpose and conviction.

Although a tree will only ever occupy one space on Earth, it makes the most of its life by growing every day until the day they die. What a beautiful attribute to have.

During its life, a tree develops strong relationships with the other trees in the canopy as they share light and space in the forest. Underground, they develop relationships with teeming masses of microorganisms which pave the way for their roots to grow. In exchange for a bit of sugar water and carbon, these organisms bring nutrients to trees and deliver messages from tree to tree. This complex underground relationship is referred to as the Wood Wide Web.

Through this web of tree roots and mycorrhizal fungi, decisions are made and nutritional components are traded in earnest. Trees do all this not only to satisfy their own need for growth, but to amplify others who are growing around them. It's this collaborative effort of development and regeneration that creates sustainability in the forest.

This is what I see in the flourish of spring, the connections of nature playing out before me. I see trees and birds and worms and bugs all interacting with each other and I see you and I alongside it all. You see, we are not separate from the natural world. We may try to separate ourselves from it, but the inescapable fact is, we are nature. Ingeniously combined atoms and elements that make us what we are. Biological beings rely on the connection with the world around them for their survival.

Seeing this connection makes me realize we can't make it on our own. We need others around us to amplify us, to bring us nutrients, to help us reach our full potential.

That's what trees do and that's what we can do too. Keep moving, keep reaching. Try to see the connections around you and encourage others to do the same. Most important, live your best life every single day and do what nature intended for you to do. Grow.

Tree Talk appears every other week in The Times. Arborist Jeff Karwoski discusses the importance and issues affecting our parks and forests.