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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, we continue our three-part farewell to the BL Trees series. We've been talking about trees once a month since last November, and this being October, this ends this one-year series. Today and tomorrow at the end of the show as well will be the last last one. Remember to tweet a picture of your tree for October, I tweeted mine this morning, and search the hashtag #BLTrees on Twitter to see all the trees over the past year.
For tomorrow, even if you haven't been tweeting pictures, we're inviting you to write a haiku in honor of your tree or as a creative way to do it from the point of view of your tree.
I'm going to write one of those later today and post it, or about the web of life that trees are part of with us. Haikus, three lines, five, seven, and five syllables if you follow the tradition.
Here's the first one that we received. This came in yesterday right after the show from Christina on Twitter.
I have birthed my leaves
Providing shade and color
Now they flutter down.
That's a seasonal tree haiku. Tweet your haikus to hashtag #BLTrees. You can also email them to blshow@wnyc.org with the subject line BL Trees haiku. We'll read more on the air tomorrow and post a bunch to our webpage.
Today, we want to talk, for these few minutes, about memorial trees, the idea of planting a tree in memory of a loved one that can grow and provide shade and fruit and life long after we, too, are memories. That's what we'll discuss now with our guide for this series this year, urban ecologist, Marielle Anzelone, founder of New York City Wildflower Week, and look who's here, it's our own Amy Pearl, one-time Brian Lehrer show producer, now an audio and video producer at WNYC.
You might have seen some of her bodega cats-in-their-own-words videos, or heard her reports during Morning Edition or All Things Considered on the Blessing of The Animals, The Invasion of Jumping Worms, or The Ballet of the Street sweepers, or the one she did just as we were starting this series on the tree planted in Prospect Park in memory of her wonderful dog, Cola. Hi, Marielle. Hi, Amy.
Marielle Anzelone: Hi, good morning.
Amy Pearl: Hi, Brian. Hi, Marielle.
Brian Lehrer: Amy, tell us briefly about Cola's tree. What kind is it? Where is it?
Amy Pearl: Cola's tree is a hornbeam and it is planted at the edge of Prospect Park down toward the parade grounds. It was five years old when it was planted, so it's about six years old now. It looked pretty scrawny, but the last time I saw it which was in June because it's pretty far, you don't get to choose where they're planted, it was looking really good and it's really leafed out and filled out.
Brian Lehrer: We should say that, being in Prospect Park, that's not something you can take upon yourself to do like just go out there and plant a tree. Your friends, I understand, paid a fee to the park in that case, which was a lovely way to honor that special bond you shared with Cola, right?
Amy Pearl: Yes. The park has this program. They need to plant a bunch of trees every year just to fill out trees that they lost or resource areas. They, I guess, use it as a fundraising thing as well. They have a fall planting and a spring planting, a limited number of trees. $1,000 is the cost for just a regular tree. You can pick one of five suggested trees, and you don't get to pick where it goes or see it planted, but it will be there for 100 years or more depending on the kind.
Mine is supposed to be there for 100 years, so it'll be there after I die, I hope. God, I hope I don't live that long. I'm so tired, Brian. It's part of the Prospect Park conservancy. Also, they have them on a lot of parks and you can probably find them in your town, wherever you are.
Brian Lehrer: Marielle, I saw that when Amy spoke to the forester who oversaw the planting of Cola's tree, he said he planted about 100 memorial trees a year. There are other programs to plant trees in national forests or other areas in addition to the curated parks of New York City. What about if you want to just plant a tree in your backyard, let's say, can you order a tree and plant a tree yourself?
Marielle Anzelone: Yes, of course, you can. Typically, if you were to do something like that, then you would be the one going to pick it out at the nursery. You want to find a good nursery, preferably one that's not at one of the big chain box stores, but more localized. You'll get really good help from someone there. They know their plants, they're plant people. Native plants, native trees are better than non-native preferably because they're also feeding wildlife.
You could get some tips as to what is best for your specific microsite. Is it going to be a shaded area in your yard or is there a lot of sun? What kind of soils do you have? They're fairly simple questions that they'll ask you in order to determine what kind of tree you would get. It's a lovely thing to do.
Brian Lehrer: One thing we didn't get to in yesterday's segment with nature writer, Robert McFarlane, who had some beautiful things to say about trees as community builders for the creatures, including us who rely on them, was a memorial tree project that he started. Marielle, do you want to say something briefly about those apple trees?
Marielle Anzelone: Yes. He had a colleague who was very smitten by apples and went to the steppes, S-T-E-P-P-E-S, it's an ecological community type of Uzbekistan to hunt down the origins of the apples.
Apples, as we know them, we do have wild crab apples in New York City but the apple that we all cultivate comes from this one location. His friend went there and was really smitten by them and would collect them and write about them. His friend passed away, and in one of his pockets was found heaps there, really the core of the apple. The seeds were taken from that and planted out.
Robert has been planting these seeds and handing them out, giving them to friends. Cultivating this large memorial apple orchard in honor of his dear friend. Really lovely.
Brian Lehrer: Robert McFarlane is also Bobby Appleseed.
Marielle Anzelone: Exactly.
Brian Lehrer: That's going to be the last word for today. Amy Pearl, thank you so much for sharing your story about Cola's tree with us. Marielle Anzelone, we'll talk one more time tomorrow and really wrap up this series when we read some haikus and reflect on the year of hashtag #BLTrees. You can tell us about the nature walk you'll be conducting in Inwood Hill Park this weekend, informationfolks@nycwildflowerweek.org.
Remember, everybody, tweet us with your haikus in the voice of your tree or from you about your tree. Email them, if you want to do it by email, to blshow@wnyc.org or a tweet hashtag #BLTrees.
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