River Trail and Appreciating Shade

Thank you to those of you who have already donated this weekend - we're at 10%!

I hope you all had a wonderful Fourth of July weekend. Summer is in full swing and we have a had a few pretty warm days - though we've been fortunate to have regular rainfall rather than the droughts of the past few years.

On a hot day, how many times do you subconsciously think "Yes! A shady spot"? When you're parking your car and find a spot in the shade, when you're walking and get a few moments of cool relief, when your electric bill is lower because the sun wasn't beating on your roof for a few hours thanks to some big green leaves, when you're driving through a plant-lush area and you feel the cooler breeze... do you ever think that we should be planting and taking care of our shade trees?

Help me do that with a donation of any kind to my ride to raise money and awareness for urban forestry and conservation work in the Chicagoland area!

There were so many times this weekend that I was grateful for shade (yes, I know, this can also be provided by buildings, but they are making things hotter - especially their parking lots). It takes a few decades for a tree to get to a useful size for shade and in urban environments they need all the care they can get.

This weekend we rode the Des Plaines River Trail through/into the Cook County Forest Preserves and on the way there we rode through the Methodist Campgrounds in Des Plaines. We really wanted to jump in that sparkling pool they have there!

Also, this is bad! The trunk is rotting. I see this a lot. 1) Don't plant your tree too deep, find the root flare where the "legs" start coming out and put that just above dirt level. 2) Get rid of the grass at least two feet around the base of the trunk; either leave it as dirt or place mulch. If you mulch, keep the mulch 6 inches away from the tree trunk as well to avoid rotting "Bagels not Volcanoes!" 3) Keep weed whackers far far away from the tree trunk, trees are strong and can seal slowly over time but they don't heal.
(For more information, read this Davey Tree Care article: http://blog.davey.com/2011/06/in-too-deep/)

In my next post I will share some photos of an Openlands tree planting day do give you an idea of just a portion of the work the organization facilitates.