quotations about trees
Many of us take for granted that trees will fall or be taken down and it's no big deal But, that spells disaster for a variety of our wild neighbors. In the early winter owls go to nesting and raise their young during the depths of the cold. Many birds take shelter in tree cavities to protect themselves against the elements. Late-fall babies, such as flying squirrels and gray squirrels, are still living in a variety of nooks and crannies in our trees. An old dead tree or any tree, is much more than firewood -- it's home to many wild creatures!
LINDA OSTRAND
"Dead trees are living nature too!", Durham Herald Sun, May 10, 2017
It is curious to what a degree one may become attached to a fine tree, especially when it is placed where trees are rare.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
When planting a new tree, please consider the impact it will have. Choosing a tree, shrub or bush that will provide food or shelter as well as beauty can easily make the difference between healthier wildlife or empty yards without song.
LINDA OSTRAND
"Dead trees are living nature too!", Durham Herald Sun, May 10, 2017
The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all Ridicule & Deformity & by these I shall not regulate my proportions, & some scarce see Nature at all, but to the eyes of a man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.
WILLIAM BLAKE
letter to Rev. Dr. Trusler, August 23, 1799
We wonder not that trees have been the admiration of men in all periods and nations of the world. What is the richest country without trees; what barren and monotonous spot can they not convert into paradise?
W. HOWITT
"The Beauty of Trees", Lessons in Modern Farming, Or, Agriculture for Schools
Mother Nature is about to lose another homestead. A big tree, too close to the house, an ancient tree in its last year, or a tree that someone simply doesn't like any more is about to be destroyed. Our current warm weather has sent our wild neighbors into a family building frenzy, but sadly, the doomed tree's inhabitants didn't get the memo. To you it might look like just another tree, but in fact it may still house a variety of wild urban creatures.
LINDA OSTRAND
"Dead trees are living nature too!", Durham Herald Sun, May 10, 2017
Street trees are up against additional pressures compared to their cousins growing in public parks or private yards. Research into the mortality rates of street trees is limited but urban ecologists agree that these trees are most likely to die during the first few years after planting. According to one study, the mortality rate is almost four times higher among the smallest trees.
EMILY MACRAE
"Why Urban Trees Are Giving Us Life", Toronto IST, May 4, 2017
No tree in all the grove but has its charms,
Though each its hue peculiar.
WILLIAM COWPER
The Task
It is pleasant to look upon a tree in summer time covered with green leaves, decked with blossoms, or laden with fruit, and casting a pleasant shade; but to consider how this tree sprang from a little seed, how nature shaped and fed it till it came to this greatness, is a more rational pleasure.
G. T. BURNETT
attributed, Day's Collacon
The death of a tree. Its dry withering naked branches, once covered with prickly green pine needles, droop like lifeless arms on this towering Colorado blue spruce. For countless summers, it has glistened faithfully in the sun -- the centerpiece for a front manicured lawn in emerald glory. Twinkling with white Christmas lights upon snow-laden evenings, it has shone.
COLUMNIST S
"A dying tree that's still rich in memories", Chicago Sun Times, April 28, 2017
Street trees do all kinds of practical good that couldn't have been foreseen when they were first planted: carbon sequestration, water runoff absorption and so forth. But beauty remains the real reason for their being.
IAN JACK
"We hardly notice them. But street trees are monuments to city life", The Guardian, May 13, 2017
Grove nods at grove.
ALEXANDER POPE
Moral Essays
The tree's green complexion fades inauspiciously, like aging paint -- its once thick pyramidal beauty a shallow shell of itself. It is translucent from its base, up to past halfway. Thin is the circumference of her branches. Like cowlicks and thinning hair that reveal a balding man's scalp, they show to the bark. The top still shimmers. It shows no signs of the disease slowly -- steadily -- creeping up from below.
COLUMNIST S
"A dying tree that's still rich in memories", Chicago Sun Times, April 28, 2017
Trees have about them something beautiful and attractive even to the fancy, since they cannot change their places, are witnesses of all the changes that take place around them; and as some reach a great age, they become, as it were, historical monuments and like ourselves they have a life, growing and passing away.
HUMBOLDT
attributed, Day's Collacon
The trees that bud and blossom forth,
Throughout the world from south to north,
Are tokens that a life will bloom
When manhood's passed beyond the tomb.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Flowers"
The individuality of a tree is like the individuality of a person. You can't create it as beautifully as it grows in nature.
BEOWULF BORITT
"A Tree Grows on Broadway: Come From Away and the Cutting Edge of Green Set Design", Theater Mania, May 7, 2017
It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanates from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
"Forest Notes"
For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone.
HERMANN HESSE
Bäume: Betrachtungen und Gedichte
If you stethoscope a tree, you can hear the hum of its heartbeat, shivering down each sinewy spine; the tangle and turn of its watery threads, you can hear each snap and snarl. Its deep rumble is very different to the dull human thump: more like amplified vibrations. Still, it defiantly voices the tree being very much alive.
JADE CUTTLE
"A plate of poetry, please: Leaves and lovers", Varsity Online, May 23, 2016
The place is all awave with trees,
Limes, myrtles, purple-beaded,
Acacias having drunk the lees
Of the night-dew, faint headed,
And wan, grey olive-woods, which seem
The fittest foliage for a dream.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
An Island