"What message would you send to a tree in your neighborhood if you could?" video/tweet george takei

[orleans]

Link to tweet

i thought this was pretty interesting.
i loved the trees in my back yard -- i grew up and was growing old with them; i talked to them a little bit (when we were alone)

another tree i was growing old with was a village tree on the parkway in front of the house. it developed some weird/crazy fungus. i had the village tree people come out and look at it and they recommended it come down. i left it alone for a couple more years but during a bad storm a huge branch broke off and i realized it was a potential danger (to passers-by, drivers, and my house). i sadly arranged to have the village come out and kill the tree. i needed to go out for a couple hours (work) and when i returned it was gone. and i was hysterical.

the anguish and guilt lasted a long time. every time i looked out the front window the tree's absence was the first thing i noticed. i had never not seen it there for over fifty years.

so, i know some people can get pretty attached to trees. i did.

[Deminpenn]

1. You're not alone

Had to have a big tree taken down a couple years ago under which my family spent many fun times. The trunk had been damaged and finally could no longer support the weight of the big branches causing them to begin breaking off one by one. Said goodbye to it the day before it was taken down. A very sad day.

[Guilded Lilly]

2. Probably a sincere Thank-you. I spent a good part of my childhood...

Climbing up into the comforting limbs of trees.
Just the sound of the breeze and the creaking of the massive branches took me to a very calm place.

[byronius]

4. I'm a confessed tree-hugger.

Overly protective of them, some would say.

[hydrolastic]

5. Up till last year i had never planted a tree

Then i one day i was about 30 miles south of home and i had an hour to kill before my appointment. I decided to drive by my grandparents house. i had not been there in 35 years. And there it was, A huge nearly 50 year old tree that dwarfed the suburban tract house. "Norwegian pine, they are the best christmas tree's" i remember my grandfather saying. I remembered i was not happy to dig a hole for the tree to plant it in the middle of January. My grandmother that year said we were going to stop killing tree's just for Christmas. There was a fake tree every year after that.

[mopinko]

6. i almost lost a glorious magnolia 2 yrs ago.

i am close to lake mich, and we had a ton of rain and the lake was REALLY high, like bldgs on the shore were being undermined.
magnolias dont like it real wet. it's leaves turned and fell in august.

it sent up a bunch of sprouts from the trunk. last year i had to keep trimming those little sprouts to get the sap all the way up the tree.
the other day i had a tree guy to look at another tree that i wanted to take down. he looked at the magnolia and said it was dead. i hadnt even thought yet about whether it was alive.
i bout had a fit. but in the next couple days, i looked harder and saw a lot of small branches that seemed to be alive.

i think it is going to make it. we are supposed to have some warm weather this week, and we shall see.

so, yeah, tree hugger here, too. i have planted 14 fruit trees on my little farm so far. last year only 2 had a good crop, but this year should be great for most of them.

loved several trees as a kid. a big maple in the yard, the neighbors old cherry.
fell out of a couple. broke my arm good at 10, but luckily never landed on my head.

[Lucinda]

7. People should spend more time talking to trees...I do.

❤️ ~✿~❧~🌿~❧~✿~ ❤️

When I was very young my mom decided this gorgeous old tree in our front yard had to go and she went up it with with a handsaw when she was 6 months pregnant. I still miss that tree.
And I still think my mom was a badass even though I was mad about it coming down.

[DFW]

8. I'd say

"Stand your ground. Don't let anyone tell you you're just a sap."

[llmart]

9. I couldn't live without trees.

Either could anyone else. So yes, I talk to trees. I try not to do it when anyone else is around, but there are several trees at my local metropark that are like old friends to me. I walk there every day and in the spring I find myself just automatically saying to one of my favorites, "Hello there old friend. I see you made it through another winter." Or in the fall when the leaves start turning on some of my favorite hardwoods I catch myself saying, "Thank you for bringing beauty into my life." I said that a lot during the ugly T**** years and even more so this past year with the pandemic.

Yeah, I'm a dotty old lady who talks to trees. Let anyone call me a tree hugger and I'll say, "Why, thank you."

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

10. I frequently hug trees and tell them that I love them

when I'm hiking, and thank them for the oxygen.

[onethatcares]

11. I talk to all the plants in my yard

the trees are a jacaranda, at least 40 yeas old and beginning to weaken due to being neglected for a long time. Branches are breaking off in high winds. a Longleaf pine at least 60 years old and about 70 ft tall, beautiful tree but scary in high winds, a smaller jacaranda that must be a volunteer and now it cannot be trimmed back hard due to the city declaring them "majestic" trees. Those are in my front yard. When we bought this property two years ago there was another longleaf pine that was leaning precariously in the neighbors direction. The neighbor never shut up about how he would sue us if it fell on his house and hurt his daughters. Both daughters are over 50 and living at home. We had the city come out and assess the danger. They recommended removal due to the shallow root system. We had it taken down but I had the tree service move the larger logs into the side yard and form a raised bed for vegetables.

In the side yard we have two water oaks probably 40 to 50 years old. They are volunteers also and branches are beginning to fall due to insects and neglect. They are also approx. 60 ft tall. I'm watching how they are living now and may have to have them removed.

Geez, that removal stuff gets expensive.

I will have to plant another two trees to compensate for the removal. They won't be water oaks though.

I tell my trees, Thanks for the air I breath and the birds you allow to live in your branches..

[electric_blue68]

12. Oh, I love trees...

ever since I was a kid.

Earlier today I talked quietly to the 3 trees that grow between our apartment building, and the one next to us.

The two bigger 5-6 story high, maybe older trees lost 2/3rds+ of their canopies in late fall, early winter in a nasty storm! 😥
I think it it was just the "perfect storm" of wind.
Those parts grew out and over our sidewalk, and made glorious shade in our neighborhood that had less than average trees until Mayor Bloomberg helped plant ? a million trees. (something like that). Unfortunately some didn't last for more than a couple of years.

I went out later that evening and because I was sleepy almost ran into one of the major branches hanging down and touching the sidewalk. the A handyman put cones up.

Day after I saw they'd been properly sawed off.

As I walked by today I told them I hoped I would see their leaf buds soon. Sent them healing vibes. And told the younger tree set back a bit further with no overhangs I was glad it was OK.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

13. This is going to sound crazy

But here goes.

A good bunch of years ago there was a golden heart cherry tree on the lawn of the house I grew up in.

I ate shitloads of cherries off that tree
Climbed her branches and I adored that tree.

She produced fruit even days before she was taken down after our house was sold as they built a sports medicine complex there,ironically the number of the building is the same as my old house.

This is where it gets crazy..

A few weeks until everything got torn up I went to the lot my house was on.
The house was collapsed into a huge hole. The yard was growing fallow. But the tree was there looking worse for wear.

I walked up to her and hugged her thanking her for all those cherries. I felt so sad. Amazingly she was bearing cherries. I ate some. I leaned my face against her and tears ran down.

I asked her if there was anything I could do for her.

She told me take my cherries eat them and take the seed and plant them everywhere. I said I would. I got every cherry and pit I could pick or find.

As I was gathering up her children she dropped a branch to the ground. I put my cheek against her bark..
She said take my branch and make something magical from it.

It is now a ceremonial rattle handle that I use for magick.

I planted her children all over Harford county,Manassas Virginia. All over the area on the way back from Maryland to Virgina. Even a few in DC.

I put seeds in places in Harford county where I am living now. And they have become healthy saplings.

She lives on.
Because she asked me to save her children.

[orleans]

14. what a bittersweet story

i never went back after i lost my house. i can't imagine not seeing it there, where i had seen it for more than 50 years (and they tore it down and build a mcmansion on the property)

they said they would keep the towering maple--but who knows what the fuck they did. i know the trees they killed (along with the garden flowers that came up every year for as long as i can remember--the daffodils, sweet peas, mint, tiger lilies & orange day lilies, the fire bush, the bleeding hearts, the pampas grass, etc etc)

i still feel the guilt over the death of the living things that were once part of my life. i didn't want to leave; it wasn't a choice i made. i had no choice.

how wonderful you planted those cherry seeds, and she gave you one of her branches to keep and remember her by.

[Raine]

15. Aw such a beautiful story, it brought tears to my eyes. 🥲

I'm so glad that her children are living on and thriving because you saved them. I love trees, they hear and they feel, they know when they're loved.

[meadowlander]

16. Don't let the bastards grind you down.

To the protected hundred year old elm tree in the parking lot of the local supermarket which keeps renovating the landscaping to add more spaces and paving over more and more of the dripline every year.

[meadowlander]

17. One of the earliest recorded examples of psychological warfare

was Julius Caesar cutting down the oak groves of the Druids during the Gallic Wars. Some of the Druids went insane with grief and lost the will to live.

It's nice that some people are still kind of Druids at heart though.