5 ms·

I’m glad planting trees is happening. And yet, I think the execution will not be that great. In my neighborhood park, there were a bunch of new trees planted t

by hosh 3y ago

I’m glad planting trees is happening. And yet, I think the execution will not be that great. In my neighborhood park, there were a bunch of new trees planted this year. And yet, it looked like someone just sprinkled trees without a care about the specific species, sun, and water. There were places that were great ideas for planting — west sides of pathways to help block the blazing afternoon Phoenix sun. And yet, there places they planted too close to existing trees, where they won’t even get sun (plants compete for sunlight, not root space). They didn’t bother to dig basins or to mulch (both harvests water, helps retain moisture, and feed the trees). The species are not appropriate for the lower Sonoron, but it is what people expect for “trees” in the cultural idea of “parks”. There were no concept of designing for canopy layers (at least, overstory vs understory), much less adding shrubs or flowers to help round out the ecosystem. (“Diversity” is not really about different species of trees, but rather, the ecological function of each plant at the different canopy layers, working together to form a stronger, more resilient ecosystem). Instead, they got their planting numbers up and everyone can pat themselves on the back for Doing Something.

nickserv 3y ago
This won't get resolved until collectively we move from "planted X millions of trees" to "X millions of trees have flourished for 5/10/15 years". The problem of course is that it's a) much more difficult and expensive to keep track of survival rates, and b) provides no immediate green-washing credentials (politicians, corps, looking at you). Thankfully there are some NGOs that are doing it right, proper analysis of the site, selection of diverse species, and yearly visits to measure survival rates. It's just that presently, these are the minority.
- hosh 3y ago
  Have you ever heard of Scientific Forestry? It was something documented in James C Scott's Seeing Like a State. Here's a long-form essay summerizing the ideas in the book: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-big-little-idea-called-legibility/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-big-little-idea-call... These forests were planted during the late colonial era by the French and German. The great naval powers at the time were running out of trees tall and straight enough to make masts. They cut down natural old-growth forests, and planted trees in a way that makes it easier to count. They grew better, and called it a success. However, that first generation grew well because they used up the nutrients banked by the natural forest. The subsequent generations did not grow as well. So over the centuries or so of trying this, they tried things like, adding in insects, and measuring their rate of growth. But it all stems trying to force a complex system into something that is legible, but the results are its own folly.[1] Frankly, our climate and global ecosystem is a complex, adaptive system [2][3][4], and to think that we can reduce solutions based on a single metric, such as atmospheric CO2 numbers, is a disaster in the making from our collective hubris. [1] https://www.science.org/content/article/germany-s-trees-are-dying-fierce-debate-has-broken-out-over-how-respond https://www.science.org/content/article/germany-s-trees-are-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework#Complex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework#Complex [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis
  - nickserv 3y ago
    Indeed, ideally we should be thinking in tree lifespans, or several hundred years. But right now, we plant oaks, which can live for centuries, and don't even think about next year's dry season. And then wonder why they die from lack of water. Now fast growing sitkas, which can be harvested in 30 years for profit, seem to be doing just fine...
    - tough 3y ago
      A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they may never sit.
antisthenes 3y ago
> There were places that were great ideas for planting — west sides of pathways to help block the blazing afternoon Phoenix sun. It's interesting that you miss the forest for the trees here. There really are no trees that are "great" for where you live, because without human intervention like what you described, there really are no trees that sustain themselves in the Lower Sonoran area. It is essentially a desert. So the long term solution is really just slowly depopulating the Phoenix area or having landscapes that are appropriate for a desert, and planting trees where water isn't so scarce as to be unsustainable without human babysitting. > And yet, there places they planted too close to existing trees, where they won’t even get sun (plants compete for sunlight, not root space) Competing for sun isn't really a thing in a desert, because canopies in that landscape are a liability rather than an advantage. They contribute to water loss, which is extremely scarce. If anything, having partial shade is good protection for young trees, which are more susceptible to variations in drought and heat.
- hosh 3y ago
  > There really are no trees that are "great" for where you live, because without human intervention like what you described, there really are no trees that sustain themselves in the Lower Sonoran area. It is essentially a desert. The Lower Sonoron us actually a steppe biome. There are plenty of native trees and shrubs that thrive all on its own with the given rainfall. People see "desert" and picture wastelands like the Sahara or the Gobi. Many people who never been to the area are surprised at how lush both the lower and upper Sonoran are. As far as human intervention goes, there is a nuance here: there is a big difference between acting upon the world as apart from the ecosystem, and acting within the world as part of the ecosystem. My neighbor's Pakistani white mulberry is very well suited for growing here in the Sonoron, with some help. Jujube trees (one of the buckthorne family) is very well suited here. So are moringas, with people growing dense, backyard moringa groves here in Phoenix. There are people who figured out how to grow the classic fruit-bearing trees here. Using dwarf varieties, careful pruning, use of deep mulch basins, chop-and-drop, companion planting, they can do very well here without having to rely on flood irrigation. > Competing for sun isn't really a thing in a desert, because canopies in that landscape are a liability rather than an advantage. They contribute to water loss, which is extremely scarce. In the park environment I am talking about, despite it being in the Sonoran, it is actually designed like a park you would see in temperate biomes. That means the overstory trees there are large ponderosa pines (which has high water requirements for the area, so they flood irrigate the park during the summer). The tree I was talking about in that park s going to be starved for sunlight is surrounded by the shadows of several of the overstory trees > If anything, having partial shade is good protection for young trees, which are more susceptible to variations in drought and heat. That's partially correct. There are other ways to work with this. For example, the people who sold my black mission fig to me told me that it doesn't shade itself. Well, it does shade itself, as long as you don't trim the lower branches that forces you to then put the white reflective paint on its trunks. In the Sonoran, the mesquites and the ironwood act as nursery trees, providing partial shade to support a variety of plants. The Suguoro cactus, for example, requires a nursery tree to help it along when it is young. Then it kills off the nursery tree when it gets mature enough. Ironwood, despite growing extremely slowly, because it acts as a nursery tree for a variety of plants, is a keystone species.
candiddevmike 3y ago
Just leave areas alone and let nature do its thing.
- Retric 3y ago
  Across hundreds of years this is largely pointless, but people aren’t worried about that kind of timescale. In the short term planting trees in areas they can thrive can make a signifiant short term impact.
- smt88 3y ago
  There are entire countries that were deforested, and it's essentially impossible for nature to repopulate those forests. Human intervention destroyed the ecosystem and there is immediate and ongoing harm to that destruction. It's idiotic to suddenly decide to "let nature do it's thing" now when billions of people are threatened by climate change.
  - ipaddr 3y ago
    You realize nature populated the forests in the first place. Birds carry seeds. It is not impossible.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      Over millions of years. If the soil the trees need has washed away they won't grow anytime soon. Some places you can plant a native tree and it will grow. Other places something is lost and it won't grow anymore. Places can be very tiny areas in the case of a desert.
      - hosh 3y ago
        And there are ways to remediate wastelands! It would take a very long time though if we just "left it alone". I think there's a false dichotomy about what "human intervention" means, because as a civilization, we think of human intervention as forces that act upon the ecosystem from the outside. Not all cultures and civilizations sees it that way. I think we think that way in modern times because we see ourselves as apart from the ecosystem rather than a part of the ecosystem. It's pretty common to hear people say, "there's nothing there", even if it is a lush, wildland (or close enough to it). As an example, there are ancient, abandoned perennial food forests that were created by the inhabitants. These work with natural processes so that yields useful to humans are byproducts of the healthy ecosystem, and they can carry on even when humans stop tending them.
wddkcs 3y ago
If you are concerned, get involved. It's likely trivially easy for you to get face to face with the person responsible for the plantings, and it's unlikely anything will change in your backyard unless you or another concerned citizen does something.
- nickserv 3y ago
  It's really not "trivially easy" to get in contact when the operation is run by a government or a corporation (even less). At best they "hear you" and "will take it into account", then keep on doing what was planned. At worst they treat you like an idiot or a lunatic. And it's not like the company hired to do the work is going to listen to some random person telling them how to do their job. Only thing I've found works is volunteering for orgs that actually do things right, if you can find one. That or just planting yourself at 2 in the morning ;-)
  - hosh 3y ago
    Probably why the idea of r/GuerrillaGardening is getting popular. Leaving that aside, I was reading about an urban permaculture group's experience with working with the city. In their experience, the city they are working with wants to make sure that whatever is done will work with other people as well. (This was Seattle, with a conversion of one part of the park to a perennial food forest)
  - wddkcs 3y ago
    It's amazing how common this attitude is, when the opposite is true. From working in U.S. municipalities, I can promise you there are regular monthly or quarterly meetings where these issues and budgets are brought up, specifically to solicit public comment. Beyond open forums, it's so easy to find the name of a park director, and schedule a face to face. They might not be thrilled to field the issue, but they are bound to by their public office. If they don', there are so many ways to force the issue (e.g. go one office above them until someone sees it as politically useful). My concern is that it's easy to be concerned online, but it does nothing but empower government overreach. So much better to translate real concern into effective local action.
vidanay 3y ago
All the trees in my mother-in-laws senior housing development died after five years because the original landscaper didn't remove any of the steel wire cages around the root balls.
- brnt 3y ago
  Around these parts, true landscapers appear to be a thing of the past, and landscapers are increasingly people coming over from construction, and /construct/ the garden: pour concrete under tiled surface, build wall, stone beams around border, fill with gravel. No biology appears to be entering the equation anymore.
Scoundreller 3y ago
> They didn’t bother to dig basins I thought you weren’t supposed to do this because the roots then grow in circles within the soft soil and eventually girdle/“suffocate” themselves. But maybe I’m misunderstanding what is meant by “basin”.
- hosh 3y ago
  Ah! Great question! Let's talk roots. Trees have different kinds of roots, such as lateral roots and tap roots. What they do depends upon the species, their growth patterns, and how those patterns adapt to their native environment. Many trees will send out some lateral roots, and depending upon the species, they can be invasive. In the Sonoron, the mesquite is very aggressive about both lateral roots (far exceeding the drip line of the trees) and deep tap root (some mesquites have been discovered with tap roogs going 250 ft in the ground). They also have the added advantage of being a nitrogen fixer. Fig roots are invasive, though primarily lateral, shallow roots. Jujube (and all buckthornes) are invasive, sending roots that can then grow and pop up as a whole other tree! Mulberries, particularly the Pakistan varieties, also have vigorous, water-seeking roots. Bamboo are not trees. They are grasses, and grow like grasses with rhizomes. Once established, at around year 5, you would have a running bamboo grove pop up out of nowhere (because they can grow 1 foot a day until they reach their maximum height). As far as basins, a basin is any depression in the landscape where rainwater can pool. It can be shallow, or deep. Many of the greenways here in Phoenix are large basins that can collect and help absorb our monsoon rains. What you are talking about with girdling happens with hardwood trees, and not with "basins". When planting a bareroot hardwood tree, you should not plant it in a way so that the root crown goes too much below the ground level. The roots need to be unravelled so that they can grow outward instead of forced back on its self. For hardwoods, they can and do strangle themselves if their roots are allowed to girdle. Contrast that to a fig, whose roots will go whichever way and it will be fine. Knowing that, you can still create a basin for such trees. You would dig the basin as a ring much further away from the hardwood, possibly as a shallow basin.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    The main problem is not in digging the basin, it's that most people think you're supposed to fill the basin with new dirt, which recreates the same problem with bare root plants that you get with 10 gallon trees bought from the nursery. Dirt put back into a hole is never the right amount of compact, so the root crown can sink or pushing the soil back into place can tear off roots. If you look at the root ball, you can often sort out how to spread out the roots without digging a basin, instead trenching out in several directions. A lot less work, especially if you're in rocky soil. I'm never digging a giant circular hole in flood plain soil again if I have any say in it.
liveoneggs 3y ago
All landscapers plant trees too close to things because they expect to get re-hired every few years to replace them.
m463 3y ago
A neighbor wanted to seed a hill, but some other folks had done it, but they got the wrong mix. So he checked a lot of places until he found a guy who knew all the native species and hydroseeded his hill. Basically water shot up onto the hill, mixed with seeds and more. stuff just took hold and it worked out.
- hosh 3y ago
  That's what guerrilla gardners do with their seedbombs do as well. (Not necessarily the hydroseeding, but rather, a selection of native species).
  - twiddling 3y ago
    https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/actions/how-make-seed-bomb https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/actions/how-make-seed-bomb
hinkley 3y ago
I know a guy who can rant at length about wetland restoration. Wetland plants have several waves of succession. If you plant A and B at the same time, B never establishes because A takes over. If you plant A and C at the same time, C dies because it needs A to be mature in order to live. Because restorations are an 'event' with an allocated budget, we make a big show of showing up and planting A,B&C all at the same time, when what we really need to do is plant B year one, A year three, and C year five. Edit: I kinda suspect the correct solution here is to have 3 separate funding sources and to hit each up in turn, so they all get their event.

by hosh 3y ago

nickserv 3y ago

This won't get resolved until collectively we move from "planted X millions of trees" to "X millions of trees have flourished for 5/10/15 years". The problem of course is that it's a) much more difficult and expensive to keep track of survival rates, and b) provides no immediate green-washing credentials (politicians, corps, looking at you). Thankfully there are some NGOs that are doing it right, proper analysis of the site, selection of diverse species, and yearly visits to measure survival rates. It's just that presently, these are the minority.

hosh 3y ago
Have you ever heard of Scientific Forestry? It was something documented in James C Scott's Seeing Like a State. Here's a long-form essay summerizing the ideas in the book: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-big-little-idea-called-legibility/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-big-little-idea-call... These forests were planted during the late colonial era by the French and German. The great naval powers at the time were running out of trees tall and straight enough to make masts. They cut down natural old-growth forests, and planted trees in a way that makes it easier to count. They grew better, and called it a success. However, that first generation grew well because they used up the nutrients banked by the natural forest. The subsequent generations did not grow as well. So over the centuries or so of trying this, they tried things like, adding in insects, and measuring their rate of growth. But it all stems trying to force a complex system into something that is legible, but the results are its own folly.[1] Frankly, our climate and global ecosystem is a complex, adaptive system [2][3][4], and to think that we can reduce solutions based on a single metric, such as atmospheric CO2 numbers, is a disaster in the making from our collective hubris. [1] https://www.science.org/content/article/germany-s-trees-are-dying-fierce-debate-has-broken-out-over-how-respond https://www.science.org/content/article/germany-s-trees-are-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework#Complex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework#Complex [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis
- nickserv 3y ago
  Indeed, ideally we should be thinking in tree lifespans, or several hundred years. But right now, we plant oaks, which can live for centuries, and don't even think about next year's dry season. And then wonder why they die from lack of water. Now fast growing sitkas, which can be harvested in 30 years for profit, seem to be doing just fine...
  - tough 3y ago
    A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they may never sit.

antisthenes 3y ago

> There were places that were great ideas for planting — west sides of pathways to help block the blazing afternoon Phoenix sun. It's interesting that you miss the forest for the trees here. There really are no trees that are "great" for where you live, because without human intervention like what you described, there really are no trees that sustain themselves in the Lower Sonoran area. It is essentially a desert. So the long term solution is really just slowly depopulating the Phoenix area or having landscapes that are appropriate for a desert, and planting trees where water isn't so scarce as to be unsustainable without human babysitting. > And yet, there places they planted too close to existing trees, where they won’t even get sun (plants compete for sunlight, not root space) Competing for sun isn't really a thing in a desert, because canopies in that landscape are a liability rather than an advantage. They contribute to water loss, which is extremely scarce. If anything, having partial shade is good protection for young trees, which are more susceptible to variations in drought and heat.

hosh 3y ago
> There really are no trees that are "great" for where you live, because without human intervention like what you described, there really are no trees that sustain themselves in the Lower Sonoran area. It is essentially a desert. The Lower Sonoron us actually a steppe biome. There are plenty of native trees and shrubs that thrive all on its own with the given rainfall. People see "desert" and picture wastelands like the Sahara or the Gobi. Many people who never been to the area are surprised at how lush both the lower and upper Sonoran are. As far as human intervention goes, there is a nuance here: there is a big difference between acting upon the world as apart from the ecosystem, and acting within the world as part of the ecosystem. My neighbor's Pakistani white mulberry is very well suited for growing here in the Sonoron, with some help. Jujube trees (one of the buckthorne family) is very well suited here. So are moringas, with people growing dense, backyard moringa groves here in Phoenix. There are people who figured out how to grow the classic fruit-bearing trees here. Using dwarf varieties, careful pruning, use of deep mulch basins, chop-and-drop, companion planting, they can do very well here without having to rely on flood irrigation. > Competing for sun isn't really a thing in a desert, because canopies in that landscape are a liability rather than an advantage. They contribute to water loss, which is extremely scarce. In the park environment I am talking about, despite it being in the Sonoran, it is actually designed like a park you would see in temperate biomes. That means the overstory trees there are large ponderosa pines (which has high water requirements for the area, so they flood irrigate the park during the summer). The tree I was talking about in that park s going to be starved for sunlight is surrounded by the shadows of several of the overstory trees > If anything, having partial shade is good protection for young trees, which are more susceptible to variations in drought and heat. That's partially correct. There are other ways to work with this. For example, the people who sold my black mission fig to me told me that it doesn't shade itself. Well, it does shade itself, as long as you don't trim the lower branches that forces you to then put the white reflective paint on its trunks. In the Sonoran, the mesquites and the ironwood act as nursery trees, providing partial shade to support a variety of plants. The Suguoro cactus, for example, requires a nursery tree to help it along when it is young. Then it kills off the nursery tree when it gets mature enough. Ironwood, despite growing extremely slowly, because it acts as a nursery tree for a variety of plants, is a keystone species.

candiddevmike 3y ago

Just leave areas alone and let nature do its thing.

Retric 3y ago
Across hundreds of years this is largely pointless, but people aren’t worried about that kind of timescale. In the short term planting trees in areas they can thrive can make a signifiant short term impact.
smt88 3y ago
There are entire countries that were deforested, and it's essentially impossible for nature to repopulate those forests. Human intervention destroyed the ecosystem and there is immediate and ongoing harm to that destruction. It's idiotic to suddenly decide to "let nature do it's thing" now when billions of people are threatened by climate change.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  You realize nature populated the forests in the first place. Birds carry seeds. It is not impossible.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    Over millions of years. If the soil the trees need has washed away they won't grow anytime soon. Some places you can plant a native tree and it will grow. Other places something is lost and it won't grow anymore. Places can be very tiny areas in the case of a desert.
    - hosh 3y ago
      And there are ways to remediate wastelands! It would take a very long time though if we just "left it alone". I think there's a false dichotomy about what "human intervention" means, because as a civilization, we think of human intervention as forces that act upon the ecosystem from the outside. Not all cultures and civilizations sees it that way. I think we think that way in modern times because we see ourselves as apart from the ecosystem rather than a part of the ecosystem. It's pretty common to hear people say, "there's nothing there", even if it is a lush, wildland (or close enough to it). As an example, there are ancient, abandoned perennial food forests that were created by the inhabitants. These work with natural processes so that yields useful to humans are byproducts of the healthy ecosystem, and they can carry on even when humans stop tending them.

wddkcs 3y ago

If you are concerned, get involved. It's likely trivially easy for you to get face to face with the person responsible for the plantings, and it's unlikely anything will change in your backyard unless you or another concerned citizen does something.

nickserv 3y ago
It's really not "trivially easy" to get in contact when the operation is run by a government or a corporation (even less). At best they "hear you" and "will take it into account", then keep on doing what was planned. At worst they treat you like an idiot or a lunatic. And it's not like the company hired to do the work is going to listen to some random person telling them how to do their job. Only thing I've found works is volunteering for orgs that actually do things right, if you can find one. That or just planting yourself at 2 in the morning ;-)
- hosh 3y ago
  Probably why the idea of r/GuerrillaGardening is getting popular. Leaving that aside, I was reading about an urban permaculture group's experience with working with the city. In their experience, the city they are working with wants to make sure that whatever is done will work with other people as well. (This was Seattle, with a conversion of one part of the park to a perennial food forest)
- wddkcs 3y ago
  It's amazing how common this attitude is, when the opposite is true. From working in U.S. municipalities, I can promise you there are regular monthly or quarterly meetings where these issues and budgets are brought up, specifically to solicit public comment. Beyond open forums, it's so easy to find the name of a park director, and schedule a face to face. They might not be thrilled to field the issue, but they are bound to by their public office. If they don', there are so many ways to force the issue (e.g. go one office above them until someone sees it as politically useful). My concern is that it's easy to be concerned online, but it does nothing but empower government overreach. So much better to translate real concern into effective local action.

vidanay 3y ago

All the trees in my mother-in-laws senior housing development died after five years because the original landscaper didn't remove any of the steel wire cages around the root balls.

brnt 3y ago
Around these parts, true landscapers appear to be a thing of the past, and landscapers are increasingly people coming over from construction, and /construct/ the garden: pour concrete under tiled surface, build wall, stone beams around border, fill with gravel. No biology appears to be entering the equation anymore.

Scoundreller 3y ago

> They didn’t bother to dig basins I thought you weren’t supposed to do this because the roots then grow in circles within the soft soil and eventually girdle/“suffocate” themselves. But maybe I’m misunderstanding what is meant by “basin”.

hosh 3y ago
Ah! Great question! Let's talk roots. Trees have different kinds of roots, such as lateral roots and tap roots. What they do depends upon the species, their growth patterns, and how those patterns adapt to their native environment. Many trees will send out some lateral roots, and depending upon the species, they can be invasive. In the Sonoron, the mesquite is very aggressive about both lateral roots (far exceeding the drip line of the trees) and deep tap root (some mesquites have been discovered with tap roogs going 250 ft in the ground). They also have the added advantage of being a nitrogen fixer. Fig roots are invasive, though primarily lateral, shallow roots. Jujube (and all buckthornes) are invasive, sending roots that can then grow and pop up as a whole other tree! Mulberries, particularly the Pakistan varieties, also have vigorous, water-seeking roots. Bamboo are not trees. They are grasses, and grow like grasses with rhizomes. Once established, at around year 5, you would have a running bamboo grove pop up out of nowhere (because they can grow 1 foot a day until they reach their maximum height). As far as basins, a basin is any depression in the landscape where rainwater can pool. It can be shallow, or deep. Many of the greenways here in Phoenix are large basins that can collect and help absorb our monsoon rains. What you are talking about with girdling happens with hardwood trees, and not with "basins". When planting a bareroot hardwood tree, you should not plant it in a way so that the root crown goes too much below the ground level. The roots need to be unravelled so that they can grow outward instead of forced back on its self. For hardwoods, they can and do strangle themselves if their roots are allowed to girdle. Contrast that to a fig, whose roots will go whichever way and it will be fine. Knowing that, you can still create a basin for such trees. You would dig the basin as a ring much further away from the hardwood, possibly as a shallow basin.
- hinkley 3y ago
  The main problem is not in digging the basin, it's that most people think you're supposed to fill the basin with new dirt, which recreates the same problem with bare root plants that you get with 10 gallon trees bought from the nursery. Dirt put back into a hole is never the right amount of compact, so the root crown can sink or pushing the soil back into place can tear off roots. If you look at the root ball, you can often sort out how to spread out the roots without digging a basin, instead trenching out in several directions. A lot less work, especially if you're in rocky soil. I'm never digging a giant circular hole in flood plain soil again if I have any say in it.

liveoneggs 3y ago

All landscapers plant trees too close to things because they expect to get re-hired every few years to replace them.

m463 3y ago

A neighbor wanted to seed a hill, but some other folks had done it, but they got the wrong mix. So he checked a lot of places until he found a guy who knew all the native species and hydroseeded his hill. Basically water shot up onto the hill, mixed with seeds and more. stuff just took hold and it worked out.

hosh 3y ago
That's what guerrilla gardners do with their seedbombs do as well. (Not necessarily the hydroseeding, but rather, a selection of native species).
- twiddling 3y ago
  https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/actions/how-make-seed-bomb https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/actions/how-make-seed-bomb

hinkley 3y ago

I know a guy who can rant at length about wetland restoration. Wetland plants have several waves of succession. If you plant A and B at the same time, B never establishes because A takes over. If you plant A and C at the same time, C dies because it needs A to be mature in order to live. Because restorations are an 'event' with an allocated budget, we make a big show of showing up and planting A,B&C all at the same time, when what we really need to do is plant B year one, A year three, and C year five. Edit: I kinda suspect the correct solution here is to have 3 separate funding sources and to hit each up in turn, so they all get their event.