The VulcanArborist

Introducing The Green Tangent Blog

2008-06-18T12:20:00.003-04:00

Since my interests are broader than just landscape maintenance, I created a new blog titled "The Green Tangent" and moved all these posts over there.

A Red, White, and Blue Weekend

2008-05-28T21:46:00.006-04:00

While camping at Anastasia Island State Park this weekend, I discovered the rare "Freedom Tree" in full bloom.

In case you didn't do it on the 'official' day, remember to hug, thank, visit, and/or pray for a military veteran this week while they are still alive. Go ahead, you can also do all those things for active military personnel.

Cruiser's Choice

2008-03-27T21:58:00.011-04:00

The last few weeks have been very busy around our company. So busy, in fact, that, after landing a couple larger forest inventory jobs with short fuses, I got recruited to help with the field work. I haven't done much timber cruising in the past couple years, so I dusted off my cruising vest, located my chaps and boots, and loaded up my tote full of field necessities for a couple weeks of fun in the sun. Where's an urban tree inventory when you really need one?

Big project cruises build camaraderie among the ranks when six or eight of us guys head out of town together to spend several days in the woods. Every night in the restaurant brings new "war stories" of conditions or critters encountered that day. So-and-so got his truck stuck. Someone else stepped on a cottonmouth. The titi was so thick that ... well, you get the picture. Long-time employees impart "valuable" information to the new kids so as to help them cope with the next day of busting bushes. In short, we all build respect for one another as we share the same good and bad experiences that are part of working in forestry.

I knew my first day in the field was going to be "special" when, upon opening the door of my truck near my first plot line, I'm greeted by a wall of white titi, a ditch full of water, and a cloud of mosquitoes. To quote on of our elder foresters, "Where the managed forest ends, our job begins." True dat.

I was reminded sometime during the second day just how mind-numbingly boring forest inventory data collection can be in southern pine plantations. Acre after acre of planted pine with varying degrees of understory density where every eight inch diameter tree looks like every other eight inch diameter tree. Oops - wait - there's a ten inch tree ... I start to look for little things to break the monotony - like a small patch of wildflowers, or a deer rub, or even the delicate fragrance of palmetto in bloom. I also like to find a picturesque spot for my "lunch plot" like this one on the river.

So as I spun my prism for the umpteenth time, I wondered what other foresters think about while cruising timber. Are we all too busy concentrating on counting paces between plots and getting our tree count correct while on-plot to think about anything except how that shower will feel at the end of the day? OK, "where are we going for dinner" is an important thought ...

I thought about Dr. Walter Bitterlich, who invented the Basal Area Sampling method we lovingly refer to as prism cruising or variable radius plot sampling (Winkelzählprobe to Herr Bitterlich). I read recently that Dr. Bitterlich had passed away earlier this year at the age of 99. His "plotless sampling" theory, published in 1957, still lives today. Timber inventory in German forests must be much easier so as to allow the mind to wander and wonder about weightier issues ... like "How can I get out of doing a 1/10th acre plot?"

Anyway, I created a short survey in an effort to poll other foresters in the southern United States on their opinions about timber cruising conditions and methods. Click the link below and have fun.

Click Here to take survey on Southern Timber Cruising

The Hunt for Red ... February?

2008-02-14T21:00:00.006-05:00

One needn't look far to spy red today, Valentines Day, the official lovers holiday.

It's interesting to me that the color
red inspires visions of love,

passion,

and romance.

At the same time,
red commands us to STOP!

It yells WARNING!

It screams HOT!

Then a lovely lass struts by dressed in her Valentine's Day finest and any wise male at once understand the connection ...

Here are a few delightful red items I've spied in my yard recently:

Bloomin' Wonderous

2008-02-07T17:57:00.002-05:00

Did you hear it? That was the sound of the first flowers bursting forth here in north central Florida. The white flatwoods plums were quickly followed by the electric magenta of redbud blooms. Oh yes, and don't forget the ultimate showman: the Japanese magnolia.

I'm beginning to see a couple red maples turn, well, red, and fully expect to see the white flowers of black cherry, peach, and pear within the next two weeks. And then in March dogwoods will be racing the azalea, cherry laurel, wisteria, among others for center stage in the landscape. How do I know? Experience. And notes.

A couple years ago I carried a legal pad in my truck and every time I saw a new flowering species bloom, I made note of it. Now I have a spreadsheet with months across the top heading up columns of flowering trees, shrubs, and vines. While February and March are especially busy blooming months, a couple other species will wait until April, May, and June to show off. Then we have to wait until September or October for the golden rain tree to break the green monochrome of summer.

Why do we long for flowers, to experience the beauty of nature in all it's forms? E. O. Williams put forth the hypothesis that there is an instinctive bond between humans and other living systems, a bond that he called biophillia. He proposed the possibility that the deep affiliations humans have with nature are rooted in our biology. Wilson thought of himself as a "scientific humanist," rather than spiritual or religious, and felt that science could be used to investigate religion. Because of our biophillia, our natural love for other life forms helps to sustain life. Why else, he argued, does mankind so enjoy the domestication of animals or planting a garden or gain such a positive emotional response to activities that might be described as "enjoying nature?"

The Bible answers that question in many ways. Since we are spiritual creations, we naturally seek a link to the Creator. Romans 1:20 explains this link in that God's "fingerprints" are all over His work and in plain sight for us to discover. Scientific discoveries can bring us to a closer understanding of God's Wisdom and amazing creativity.

And so I enjoy the discoveries an outdoor hike can bring: a solitary wild bloom; the gnarled trunk of an ancient oak; the heady perfume of yellow jasmine; a white wave of herons heading to roost; the nano-scale moss forest on a rotting log. Yes, even the strait towering rows of a pine plantation can form the cathedral for a worshipful walk in the woods. Wonder at the blooms of spring and enjoy the Creator in His creation.

That "Super Tuesday" Feeling ...

2008-02-05T23:46:00.000-05:00

I've got a weird feeling. It's like the feeling you get after watching a couple hours of "Battlestar Galactica" and the Cylons have just pulverized the humans down to one last ship. Then you go outside and, while walking the dog, you look up at the stars and shudder. Cross that with the feeling I got after the Isalmists attacked America on September 11th, the feeling that the world would never be the same again, in a bad way.

That's how I feel when I think that Hilary Clinton could be the next President of the United States.

OK, so it's not a tree-related topic, but if it comes true, the landscape of North America and all the creatures therein will change forever. Government will be much bigger; money will be much scarcer; people will be much less in control of their own destiny; and around the world socialists will cheer the victory because millions more soon-to-be-miserable people will be joining their ranks.

Colors of the Season

2007-12-12T13:53:00.001-05:00

"Hey, come look! The leaves are out! Oh ... too late ... you missed it ..."

Well, OK, maybe fall color isn't quite that fleeting in Florida but it is relatively short-lived. We don't attract the 'leaf hoppers' like New England or Appalachia (Florida tourists are looking for Mice, palms, and shells) but the colors of late November provide a nice change from our normal uniformly evergreen landscape.

While driving through north Florida and the West Florida Republic after Thanksgiving, all the right conditions seemed to have come together this particular weekend to produce some spectacular scenery. As I descended a long downhill straightaway, bright sun ignited the golden mid-story of cherry, sweetgum, and grapevine. Suddenly WOW! a single maple popped out along the edge showing off a gradient of colors from sunny navel orange through shocking fiery fuchsia.

Here's a question for the botanists: Why do some species only make a certain color (hickory, elm, ash, cypress, crape myrtle) while others (maple, sweetgum) show off like a rainbow?

Now, in December, more colors of the season are showing in the form of berries: holly, dogwood, Indian hawthorn, nandina. Do any wildlife eat this stuff? Our neighborhood squirrels have obviously been spoiled by the urban welfare of bird feeders. Witness my driveway: an orange mess of mashed laurel oak acorns. You'd think that a pre-cracked ready-to-eat meal would attract tree rats like a soup kitchen but better and even easier pickin's must lie elsewhere ...

Organics fade but inorganics light up the neighborhood shrubbery as another form of seasonal color takes over for a month or two. Hopefully these excited electrons will remind you of the excitement shepherds shared with angels one starlit night two millennia past when mankind's Savior was born.
Merry Christmas!

A Better Hour

2007-10-28T19:04:00.001-04:00

Two hundred years ago, William Wilberforce, after twenty years of passionate effort, was successful in ending Great Britain’s involvement in the human slave trade. English poet William Cowper described the time as “the better hour” when character and community were joined together (www.thebetterhour.com). To some extent the wounds of slavery remain evident on modern society; indeed, oppressive governments continue to enslave people around the world. Certainly studying the life of William Wilberforce can move contemporary learners to change the world around them for the better, even if by small increments.

In thinking about slavery in the twenty-first century and how Wilberforce poured his life into abolishing human trade, I chased a mental rabbit and began noticing how we have “enslaved” trees and plants in our created environment. People, being the highest order of Creation, are certainly more important than plants in the Grand Scheme. Nevertheless, trees contribute to our quality of life through their well-known attributes of generating oxygen, providing cooling shade in summer and blocking cold winds in winter, damping noise, furnishing fruit and nuts, and softening the view out our windows by somehow adding aesthetic beauty to our surroundings.

I’m not talking here about the arts of bonsai or pollarding or topiary. “Tree slavery” comes in the form of too closely confining large trees with impervious surfaces or by planting trees that “want” to grow large in a space too small for that to be biologically possible. Tree slavery can be the result of ignorance (“Those little oak trees are so cute! Let’s plant a dozen of them out front!”) or is forced on the landowner by government mandate (“The tree/landscape ordinance says you need 52 large trees – find a place for them!”). We have doomed the tree to a suppressed, root-bound life, all the time wondering why it never grew up to its potential.

Tree slavery can destine trees to a forced existence in an unfulfilling location of another kind: large tree under utility lines. Adequate root space may not be the problem but constant pruning to eliminate conflicts will mangle the crown, shorten the tree life span and/or create structural hazards. Right-Tree-In-Right-Place Info

Then there are the instances where offenses against a tree are not so much slavery as negligence. The wounds can remain for the life of the tree, even after it is freed from its bonds. Mower and line trimmer damage, irrigation trenching through roots, and no provision for timely removal of staking materials are all preventable negligent acts against trees.

It’s time for The Better Hour in arboriculture. Granted, by the time an urban forester or arborist gets involved, the crime has already been committed but, here are ten things that we can do to improve the created landscapes around us:

Speak up against landscape atrocities, be they slavery or negligence.
Discover books and research about proper tree care and learn as much as you can. Pass them on to folks you think might need them.
Educate local leaders about abuses against trees and how they can be corrected.
Support a local arboretum or community garden that uses trees wisely in their design.
If you have arborist skills, put on a workshop for local landscape maintenance workers.
Support arboricultural and horticultural research.
Tree health is important to community life – let your yard be a shining example.
Help to rehabilitate trees by performing free training prunes in a parking lot near you.
Found or support a non-profit organization that advocates proper tree planting and maintenance.
Pass along your zeal for proper tree care by regularly speaking to community groups. Write a Letter to the Editor exposing tree atrocities and their solutions.

Woes in the Urban Forest

2007-10-06T16:08:00.001-04:00

As I trek through our great American cities, my eyes are struck by both the beauty and horror of the created landscape. Showy flowers grace trees destined for death, or at best, decine - like an early funeral. We pay lip services to the importance of trees in the humanscape and, indeed, stick a few in the ground to show we 'care' about the environment. Then we treat them like homeless individuals, barely providing a regular meal, once in a while cleaning up a broken limb, or casting abuses in the name of care and culture.

While the latest fashions adorn our streetscapes, the living objects best equipped to aid in our comfort and enjoyment stand naked, crippled, dead, and dying. They are low-balled, then forgotten. Highly praised, yet relegated to solitary pits.

Passionately protected in the wild, regularly neglected and ignored at home. What could be the magnificent centerpiece of an artist's creation ends up the embarrasing afterthought formed by neglect or uneducated caretakers.

American Forests periodically asks cities about their trees and tree care programs. Last I heard, on average, downtown trees live to the ripe old age of about 13 years while trees in the 'burbs make it into their 30's. Seems that we don't do much to encourage old growth close to home - we'd rather Governement did that somewhere far away.

Our boulevards are either a nursery or a nursing home for trees: new plantings required by new codes next to decrepit century-old relics of a simpler time. The young vital specimens lovingly selected by the designer today may never grow to their potential for lack of proper care. Sounds like the lead-in to a bad joke about public schools, but in reality, it's much worse. To care for children professionally requires background checks, licensing, certification - some proof of competency. Care of trees and landscapes requires, seemingly, nothing more than a pulse, tools, and transportation.

So how do we change any of this? You can train a monkey to do something but you can't educate him as to why it should be done. Education can transfer knowledge, but how do you transfer passion? Stay tuned as I explore these issues and more. I will post the good, the bad, and the internaly rotten.