The sidewalks surrounding Central Park were designed to help you escape. Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the landscape architects behind the landmark, proposed in their 1858 planning document to plant a plush line of trees to separate the sidewalk and the road, “for the purpose of concealing the houses on the opposite side of […]
Read MoreTag: Trees and Shrubs
Some of Washington’s Iconic Cherry Trees Are About to Disappear
Around 140 cherry trees that form part of Washington’s iconic spring attraction will be chopped down this year to make way for the construction of new, taller sea walls to protect the area around the Jefferson Memorial. The National Park Service, which is overseeing the project, said on Wednesday that it had tried to minimize […]
Read MoreIn the Fight Over N.Y.C. Sidewalks, Tree Beds Are the Smallest Frontier
Over 660,000 trees line the streets of New York City, and the beds around them take up more than 400 acres, according to a city estimate. While many people just walk by the rectangular openings in the sidewalk from which the trees spring — or, worse, use the spaces as trash cans and doggy litter […]
Read MoreComing Soon to Manhattan, a Brand-New Tiny Forest
A trend that’s gaining momentum around the world is set to finally arrive in Manhattan. It’s a tiny forest, to be planted on the southern end of Roosevelt Island, in the East River, this spring. According to its creators, it would be the first of its kind in the city and would consist of 1,000 […]
Read MoreAfter Shutting Down, These Golf Courses Went Wild
There was scraggly grass in one sand trap and wooden blocks and a toy castle in another, evidence of children at play. People were walking their dogs on the fairway, which was looking rather ragged and unkempt. This was only to be expected. Nowadays, these grounds are mowed just twice a year, and haven’t been […]
Read MoreAtmospheric River Drenches California, With More Storms on the Way
A powerful storm known as an atmospheric river swept over California on Thursday, soaking the state with rain and leaving a trail of damage that has become familiar to residents in recent years: fallen trees, flooded roads and snarled travel. Though the storm was not expected to cause the kind of chaos that was sown […]
Read MoreProtecting the Ancient Beech Trees of Romania
The story of the Forest of Immortal Stories begins not so long ago, in 2019, when Elena-Mirela Cojocaru, beloved wife of Ion Cojocaru, mayor of the hamlet of Nucsoara, died after a struggle with cancer. Mr. Cojocaru himself soon fell ill with a heart ailment; as a remedy his doctor told him to walk in […]
Read MoreIn the Shelter of a Weeping Beech
Off Route 6 on Cape Cod, a few miles in from the bay near Yarmouth, Mass., there hides a giant ancient English weeping beech. The tree is so big that it has its own parking lot. But you don’t see it right away. Tucked among a clutch of shrubs and smaller trees, it’s not clear […]
Read MoreA ‘Green Glacier’ Is Dismantling the Great Plains
And yet, for decades now, discussion about the Green Glacier has been largely relegated to the dusty confines of trade journals and agricultural conventions. Perhaps this is because the vast majority of our remaining grasslands are privately owned. Perhaps, as our forests burn and our levees break, there is little sympathy left for the livestock […]
Read MoreHow Much Can Trees Fight Climate Change? Massively, but Not Alone, Study Finds.
Restoring global forests where they occur naturally could potentially capture an additional 226 gigatons of planet-warming carbon, equivalent to about a third of the amount that humans have released since the beginning of the Industrial Era, according to a new study published on Monday in the journal Nature. The research, with input from more than […]
Read MoreTwo More Arrests Made Over Destruction of Sycamore Gap Tree
Two men in their 30s were arrested and released on bail on Tuesday in connection with the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree, the latest development in the investigation into who chopped down one of Britain’s most photographed trees, which had stood for two centuries in a dip in Hadrian’s Wall. The two additional arrests […]
Read MoreCan We Save the Redwoods by Helping Them Move?
Their aggressive approach to conservation featured prominently in numerous scientific articles that followed, discussing the pros and cons of assisted migration. One common theme that has emerged is the need for a framework within which to make decisions about facilitating the migration of plants and animals, not least because the unintended consequences could be irreversible […]
Read MoreHow Megafires Are Remaking the World
On Aug. 15, a small wildfire was detected in the hills above West Kelowna, in British Columbia. The landscape was parched and the wind was fierce, and over the next few days the modest blaze exploded into a raging conflagration. It raced down into the valley and toward Okanagan Lake. Wind blew red-hot embers across […]
Read MoreAt Site Where Sycamore Gap Tree Fell, an Unanswered Question: Why?
Tony Gates was one of the first to hear the bad news. The chief executive of Northumberland National Park, a 400-square-mile swatch of rolling hills and wild moorland on England’s northern edge, he received a phone call early last Thursday informing him that one of the area’s most celebrated landmarks, the tree at Sycamore Gap, […]
Read MoreBeloved Tree in England Is Felled in ‘Act of Vandalism’
A 16-year-old boy was arrested Thursday on suspicion of criminal damage after one of Britain’s most famous trees, a sycamore that stood in a dip in Hadrian’s Wall, was cut down overnight in what the authorities described as “an act of vandalism.” “We have reason to believe it has been deliberately felled,” Northumberland National Park […]
Read MoreBillionaire Moguls and a Trillion Trees
At last week’s Climate Forward event, I asked Bill Gates how he offsets his own substantial carbon footprint. Gates mentioned paying for direct air capture, funding heat pumps and installing solar panels. He also told me what he wasn’t doing. “I don’t use some of the less proven approaches,” he said. “I don’t plant trees.” […]
Read More5 Places to See Spectacular Foliage This Fall
Heat domes, droughts, smoky skies, tropical deluges: After a record-breaking summer of extreme weather events, dare we dream of crisp nights, cozy sweaters and the colors of fall? “This summer really was a chaotic mix of record wettest and record driest, and fall colors will reflect that,” said Austin Rempel, director of forest restoration at […]
Read MoreAncient Logs Offer Earliest Example of Human Woodworking
Nearly half a million years ago, humans in Africa were assembling wood into large structures, according to a study published Thursday that describes notched and tapered logs buried under sand in Zambia. The discovery drastically pushes back the historical record of structural woodworking. Before, the oldest known examples of this craft were 9,000-year-old platforms on […]
Read MoreApes and Monkeys That Went Up Trees Had to Evolve the Ability to Climb Down
Millions of years ago, a simian ancestor of humanity decided to climb a tree. It may have been looking for a meal, escaping a predator or seeking a shady place to rest. Later, like anyone who has ascended high into a forest’s canopy, our relative discovered that getting down in one piece is less simple […]
Read MoreSydney Suburb Is Shocked by Mass Destruction of Trees
The crime scene: Nearly an acre of protected bush land in a wealthy suburb of Sydney, bracketed by sprawling multimillion-dollar mansions on one side and the sparkling harbor on the other. The method: Attacked with a chain saw. Or poisoned. Sometimes, both. The victims: Banksias, wattles, gum trees, and more. Two hundred and sixty-five in […]
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