What are these cylindrical forms of rubble that are rising from the arboretum? Stupas?

As defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica a Stupa is a Buddhist commemorative monument usually housing sacred relics associated with the Buddha or other saintly persons. This makes sense in the way that these relics are the skeletons of the houses that have sacrificed themselves to the project of returning the landscape to trees and plants, rewilding, native habitat restoration. I like to think of this work as peeling back the layer of colonial settlement to reveal what is truly here under this concrete and sod. I mean what came before and can be here again.

Planting trees in Detroit is a little different than planting trees in most other places. I have not yet planted a tree on the moon, but I imagine it bears some similarity to planting a tree here in Detroit. This blend of clay, concrete, and other assorted detritus feels lunar when translated through the vibrations of my shovel. Digging a hole is creating space. In some places this means removing soil. In Detroit this means removing bricks, rubble, garbage, and other debris from the depression into which you would like to plant the tree. This is the first step. We have to dig the hole extra deep for drainage because a tree planted in a clay bowl will die from root rot due to the lack of oxygen (unless she’s a Cypress in which case she will make knees of her roots that will rise above the soil line to breathe for her). So, we dig the hole an extra 6-12 inches deep and then bring in the compost and topsoil. Now we have what amounts to a giant pot really to plant into. This will encourage good growth for the first year or two, but then of course the roots hit the walls and face the reality that they are somewhat confined and that life is not quite as easy as it seemed. We do not want this.

This is one of the reasons we are planting our trees in groups, clusters, and groves. If we create several of these depressions in close enough proximity to each other the trees can break through and join forces. By adding Mycorrhizal fungi to each hole we are encouraging a network to form. This fungi is essential for tree growth and tree cooperation. It is the hallmark of healthy soil. It takes years, decades, centuries to establish a proper community. Under the oldest forests are networks of mycelium that would circle the Earth hundreds of times. By introducing this fungi to our planting holes we get the relationship started. What they really love is a few hundred years of undisturbed fallen leaves. This is where soil is made, where Mycorrhizae flourish.

Mycorrhizae exist in symbiosis with the trees, and act as a communication and delivery system for the roots. The fungi deliver sugars from one tree to another across the forest network. This is how trees that get no sunlight can stay alive in the understory for decades, or how the stump of a tree cut down a hundred years ago can still be alive today with no trunk or branches. The stump and the massive network of roots established over centuries is too valuable for the other trees to let go of. This mother tree was, and continues to be, the hub of this forest network. The Mycorrhizae will also take a bit of the sugar off the top in exchange for delivery services. 

In addition to sugars delivery the Mycorrhizae give the trees something that they cannot get at on their own: minerals. Trees cannot eat rock, but Mycorrhizal fungi can. They slowly eat away the rock and pass the mineral wealth to the tree roots through the hyphae, or root tips. The fungi actually penetrate the root hairs- this is where the exchanges are made. The only analogy I can think of is a kiss. We want to encourage lots of this. My point is that by planting a grove of trees we can improve the soil and encourage this unseen layer of life. When we see street trees planted in boxes between slabs of sidewalk we understand that this tree is very alone. There is no other to exchange anything with. I do not know if a tree without companions knows what she is missing but I do know that her health and longevity will be much greater with the support of other trees and fungi to share life with; that’s objective fact.

That’s a long way from the stupas I began with. Well, we are taking all of the concrete that we are breaking our shovels and shoulders and backs on and displaying them among the trees of the arboretum so that visitors can understand what we are doing when we plant trees in Detroit’s vacant lots. On one hand it is a great luxury that we Detroiters have the space to make our gardens, forests, and dreams come true. While on the other hand we are paying the DLBA and their brokers so that we can clean up the mess that the city has made over the past 50 years. We are not actually buying land; we are buying space in which to create land. We are buying a substrate of garbage and fill dirt onto which we can build the soil onto which to build our dreams. So, if it seems real dreamy to grow Detroit, you’re right- it is a dream come true, but it takes a lot more than meets the eye. Just like most of the forest is happening below our feet out of our view, most of the arboretum is happening before the tree ever gets into the hole. 

Trees are fountains. They spill into the sky in perfect forms. They can take a hundred gallons of water from the ground in a single hour and send it up their trunks out their graceful branches. Through the stoma on a giant crown of leaves they transpire the water vapor out into the sky. It returns as rain and cycles again through this perfectly refined system. 

Fountains, however, are fleeting; every gesture lasts only a split second. Millions of movements piled atop each other create the form - a trick of the eye. Trees, on the other hand, fabricate a solid three dimensional record of every year’s performance. Maybe trees are both fountains and shadows of fountains. Every tree’s genius DNA collaborates with the sun to 3D print these majestic forms. If we could freeze a fountain it would be a glassy Elm tree. Trees are spilling upward and outward in sub-slow motion. Tree time is long and slow, meant for sloths and moss, difficult for humans to comprehend. We can learn so much about patience, forbearance, groundedness, stillness, strength and flexibility from the trees around us.

“A tree is a marvelous architectural victory over gravity.” I just read that sentence. It lives in A Sanctuary of Trees, by Gene Logsdon. He also refers to trees as living umbrellas that save the Earth from destruction. The recent documentary Kiss the Ground is also a beautiful and plain illustration of this obvious truth - trees shelter and feed the Earth, trees are the Earth. Trees create and sustain soil. Without trees we become a rocky lifeless planet. We are creating deserts in places where we have denuded the landscape and exposed the Earth’s soil to direct sunlight. We see this happen all over the planet in places that we have over harvested and clear cut the forest.  We don’t sit around waiting for the desert that comes in the absence of the trees we have plundered, we build the deserts ourselves. We call them lawns, malls, parking lots, and freeways.

We practice tree suppression and tree prevention. We call it mowing and paving. We all know the extreme contrast between standing on a blacktop parking lot and standing under a giant shade tree on the same July afternoon. It only takes a hundred square feet to demonstrate what we have done to so much of the planet. We need trees. And we don’t even need to plant them - they spring up and express themselves everywhere we allow. It is painful to say that and concede that we are the keepers of the planet - we end up being the ones who decide what species will be and which will not. This is what we have signed up for and so we ought to take the responsibility very seriously. We have created a giant mess for all species, including ourselves. With all, and in spite of all, the knowledge and power that we wield it is time to humble ourselves before the trees and this wonderful system we are privileged to live in. Trees are fountains of life. If we simply stop the tree suppression we will have forests everywhere.

Trees are also fountains of carbon. This is especially apparent when they release their leaves back to the Earth’s surface like giant snowflakes. This process is taking place right before our eyes. I have always thought of leaves as coming off primarily in wind storms and weather events, one by one. However, camping on a recent November weekend Kinga and I noticed as quiet flushes of Oak leaves dropped by the hundreds in the still of the afternoon. A Red Oak over our tent gave us a spontaneous leaf shower, then ten minutes later a White Oak off in the woods. This leisurely quiet symphony amplified the presence of the trees as beings. It was like, oh there’s somebody there. Seeing the trees around us deciding to simultaneously drop a hundred leaves calls on me to recognize their being. I feel like the trees were having fun with us. Right when we thought we were most alone we discovered that we were surrounded by others. What a joy to receive word from the trees.

We, of course, participate in the building of these majestic fountains - they contain our breath. We contain their breath. This is one of the reasons that we like to get out into the trees. This reciprocity is so much more immediate when we are out there breathing with the trees. 

Fall color is a real gateway love. It is one of the first reasons many of us learn to love trees. Tree people and those who do not yet know they are tree people alike, wait for these sweater days when we are enveloped in color.

2020 Foot Path over the mound of clover, on the way to Field Temple across the street. Shagbark Hickory yellowing beyond the Red Maples.

Trees in the fall are soulful fireworks. Unlike cheap, common fireworks they are a celebration that is universal, one that connects us to our true mother, nature. They touch us so deeply, first, because of their sheer magnitude. We are not talking cheap garish blasts in the sky here; we’re talking about whole forests filling latitudes with reds, oranges, yellows, and rusts as far as the eye can see. And we don’t just buy them when we want and blow them off when we want. There will be no obnoxious blasts that leave them screaming for another and another. We wait patiently, anxiously, expectantly through the year for them to arrive on their own time to unfold slowly across the landscape. These fireworks suspend time, and for a change we are asking time to slow down. We want fall to last long like memories.

Best of all, they flush into radiance in complete silence. It’s a miracle every time- soulful, not surface. They reach us so deeply and incomparably. They will never wake your baby or scare your dog. They do not intrude on everyone else’s night, or morning for that matter. Silence seems so underrated these days.

Paper Birches and Native Wildflowers in Treetroit 1 - a couple of boulders peeking through

It’s also true that we can, but don’t have to, visit the forest to witness it. We bring the forest to our own gardens and front yards. We set these stages for the annual pageant. I added a few more scarlet Oaks and Sugar Maples near enough to the house to delight me all day.

Fall color is free, and we all have a front row seat. It’s the height of nature, accessible to all without really doing anything, unless we want to. In which case plant a tree, or a couple hundred, to heighten the effect. Bring some fall color to your garden, to your house, to your street. Pay it forward this fall and you will be delighted for the rest of your life.

Treetroit 1 - Red Maples planted last year, and the Spruces that used to flank the house that stood there once. Yellowing Honey Locusts on the street, planted in the 80’s perhaps.