Tree Count: 15,421 Huge thanks to M.L.Rose Pub, New Belgium Brewing, and Ajax Turner for helping make Beer for Branches a huge success. We will be planting 1,000 trees in Tennessee and over 6000 trees in Nicaragua with the money raised! Weed Alert! Serious weeds are overcoming our neighborhoods and forests. Two of the most serious plant pests in Oregon are rapidly becoming our most common plants: English ivy and Clematis Vitalba. If you have vines rapidly overtaking your tree, hedge, house, or shrubbery (and seeding readily in your yard, and in the neighborhood), then they are almost certainly these pests. These vines are the most destructive plants ever introduced to Western North America and are capable of destroying all herbs, trees, and shrubs in our area. That is to say that if left alone, they kill every other plant. It simply is not safe to have them on your property. They escape by birds eating and dropping or wind dispersal of their seeds. Often they travel from your property and begin a new rapidly worsening infestation somewhere else. Both vines are more shade tolerant, drought tolerant and disease resistant than any of our native plants. They are immune to our native insects and provide little or no food for wildlife. Ivy is actually poisonous to most animals. As our forests continue to be overrun by these invasives, there will be nothing for deer and other wildlife to browse. Both plants climb trees and kill them, and then make such a dense mat of vegetation on the ground that no native plants can ever re-colonize the site again in the future. When we tolerate these destructive plants we starve birds and animals because there are no other fruiting plants or browse for them to eat. Ivy and clematis have minimal food value. If you love birds, butterflies, trees and a diverse landscape (such as Oregon currently is) then you need to remove these destructive of pests from your property and make sure your neighbors are aware of the danger as well. Trees generally die when vines climb ½ to ¾ of the way up the trunk. A dead tree generally costs $1000 to removed. What you can do to help: One way or another completely eliminate Clematis Vitalba and English Ivy from your property. * Mark all native or otherwise desirable plants so you can find them (tape or spray paint works for this). * Cut the vines on trees at 2 feet off the ground, so they wither and stop seeding overhead into your property and neighboring properties. This is effective because most of the seeds are borne on the aerial part of the plants rather than near the ground. For clematis this is easy, simply cut the vines off (they can be small or in an older plant 3 inches in diameter). For ivy you have to make sure you cut EVERY vine or it won’t be harmed by you’re efforts (this can be a dense cage around the tree). Never penetrate the tree’s bark as this can girdle the tree. This is the most important step. *apply 1.5 strength Roundup to all the vine stubs and the remaining ivy on the ground but not the desirable plants. That is why I recommend marking them. *If you don’t like pesticides clematis can be dug out of the ground and ivy pulled, but this is laborious *Many plants such as trilliums and lilies go dormant in the summer or fall. Some authorities recommend spraying in early fall to avoid killing good plants. However a hot summer day in June is the best time of year to spray and effectively kills the rapidly growing plants. *Whether you cut, pull, dig or poison these invasive plants, it will likely take a year or two to be rid of the mother plants and a few more years of making sure seedlings are eliminated when they periodically germinate from the soil. PREPARED BY DANIEL PLATTER SOUNDFOREST.ORG Feel a little bit bad for having a tree cut down for Christmas? Fret no more! We're planting trees to help the Planet! Donate now and we'll plant trees along Tennessee waterways to "offset" cutting trees down for Christmas. And these trees will be doing all kinds of goodness for the Planet. Stabilizing stream banks reduces erosion, creates habitat for wildlife, filters out pollutants, and shades the water helping fish, salamanders, turtles and all kinds of aquatic life! So, go ahead, feel good about having a fresh cut tree in your home! We'll plant trees in your honor and create a healthy forest and healthier water. Suggested Donation $5. The more you give the more we'll plant! Tree Catalog: 15,061 to 15,160 Saturday we planted 20 redbud trees and 100 oak trees with the Department of Forestry along a stretch of Mill Creek. This riparian project will eventually have 2500 trees planted to improve wildlife habitat and reduce erosion in this flood zone! Tree Catalog: 15,162 to 15,165 Today we planted 4 redbud trees at a home owner in the BHN area of Nashville. Yea! SoundForest.org partnered with Susan G. Komen to plant 120 redbud trees along a portion of a Nashville Greenway running parallel to the Cumberland River. These trees are planted in honor of people affected breast cancer in our community. They will eventually shade a portion of the greenway and will create a canopy that will bloom pink in the spring. North Carolina SoundForest.org annual meeting. Directors Dan Platter, Jessica Duke, and Thomas Solinsky discus the plans for 2013. SoundForest.org partnered with HON to plant trees at five different homes in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood. We planted Ginkgo, Linden, Paw Paw, Cherry, Plum, Crabapple, and redbud trees. These trees will provide shade to homes which will reduce energy use in the summer. Some will also produce fruit which can be harvested by home owners to eat. Neat. |
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April 2018
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