
Concentrations must be kept below 450ppm to keep global warming below 2 C. Photo credit: NASA
This is your atmosphere on Carbon Dioxide. We need more trees. So here are a few more from the yard. Look at it as a carbon bank, taking Carbon Dioxide out and replacing it with Oxygen. Come on! How much difference can it really make? Each new tree can remove 10 pounds of Carbon Dioxide in first year. Ten years in that tree is grabbing 48 pounds! Every new acre removes 2.5 tons of the greenhouse gas! Ten years later, doing the math 12 tons gone. Now if we keep the trees we have too. We save ourselves. Ok maybe not.
Sides of your property can provide much need shelter for birds. Where big trees don’t fit, we enter a mix of shrubs and ornamental trees. At the bottom, a Bush Honeysuckle branch curls from underneath. On its own the Bush Honeysuckle woukd be ten feet with a ten feet spread. The glossy leaves of the Common Dogwood actually lighten up a dark space. The thin branches provide nest building platforms for songbirds. At about ten feet tall, it’s blooms get lost sometimes. Below is a better view.
The Silky Dogwood shares the leaf pattern buy it much else with its more popular cousin. It’s flowers hold a cluster of eight to twelve tiny flowers with a flat top. It’s has many trunks, so spread underground called stolons to make addition plants. It to provides plenty of shelter for birds.
The most common tree in North America, and it still needs an introduction! Above is the Quaking Aspen, at five years old it’s growth rate is crazy. It also has a problem keeping it’s branches at times. They are great shade trees, but you are looking at fifty feet of tree in five years. Don’t go near the house with one of these things! (Somewhere a person reading this has a Blue Spruce up against their house that did the same thing at a slower rate ). While after a good storm you maybe picking up leaves, during the breezes you’ll hear the leaves quaking. Truly an awesome sound. If you land is wooded, sometimes they get help being planted like this one was. I guessing a squirrel was involved, they have planted many oak trees too!
Speaking of oaks, the mighty Pin Oak, swampland’s friend! If you have wet soil where nothing grows….I have a tree for you. It needs only to be ignored, maybe lower branches cut if you mow around it. Other than that, killing one is very difficult. This baby is at least 13 years old. It’s about 35 feet tall. There are lots of places for critters to hide. Birds and squirrel in the branches. Stray cat, racoons, and moles underneath. It will turn brown in fall and those leaves will stay on the tree most of the winter.
Above is a close up of th e leaves. The form is shape and deep cut between points on the leaf. Opposed to the other one below, the Swamp White Oak. Similar build and needs as the Pin Oak. This is the only easily visible one in my yard and it’s mixed in a row of trees and doesn’t show its ture shape. It would like the Pin Oak above, little narrower.
Trees sustain life.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes they do. They will hopefully save us from ourselves.😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Beautiful trees, Mark! Are you the one to rake their leaves? That seems like it would be a lot of work!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Riding lawn mower! I blow the chewed up pieces onto the woods with it too. 😉
LikeLike
Oh! Great idea! Mulch the trees with it and your acreage looks so clean and neat and freshly raked!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You only take pictures from certain angles after its mowed. 😉 I’m replanting a stretch about 12 feet by 130 feet , so I need to wait for some tree pictures till it fills in a bit.
LikeLike
That’s quite a bit of replanting! Hopefully, it will grow fast!
LikeLiked by 1 person
If I can keep it wet for 2 weeks, it’ll be fine. If it didn’t grow in by mid July it’ll have to be redone in fall
LikeLike
When I planted my grass I put straw over the top of it to keep the birds from eating the seed and to help keep the moisture in. It worked great!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ll use straw I’m hoping I can use just one bale. It’s hard to get out of the car when it breaks off
LikeLike
I know it is pretty messy working with it because it doesn’t hold together.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have a garden cart so once out of the car, It shouldn’t much of an issue. It has High sides so I can take chunks without spilling whole bale
LikeLike
That’s great you have a garden cart! I always used a red wagon and I love that wagon! LOL!
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is twice as wide as little longer with food high sides, and it dumps things out really easy
LikeLike
It sounds great!
LikeLiked by 1 person
When my wheel barrel had a rusted wheel rusted in place, I went for the cart at about $100. After using it once, it was greatest thing I have ever bought! Dumping means only doing half the work because the wheels move together. Its stable, easier to move, has four wheels do it didn’t lean. I don’t know why I didn’t get one earlier
LikeLike
When I bought my home and property I got a red wagon for my yard work and I have always loved it but I can tell your yard wagon is much nicer and more functional than a red wagon.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m moving a lot more than a wheel barrel can carry with it. I was kind of hesitant to give up wheel barrel. But it’s grear
LikeLike
I never used a wheel barrel but I can imagine that your yard cart is much better than a wheel barrel.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They are awkward and tend to lean. The more stuff the more it decides where it wants to go
LikeLike
LOL! What little experience I have had with them, I agree with you! They are hard to navigate. A garden cart is perfect!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love honeysuckle. I used to have honeysuckle behind my bedroom window when I was growing up.
LikeLiked by 1 person
These are quite as fragrant as the vine but still a mass of them is a great thing. The only problem is they spread easily by the birds. I know of a couple dozen in my yard that are new this year.
LikeLiked by 1 person