What does a tree need to live? Amazingly, very little, all free and abundant in the natural world: sunlight, air, water, and minerals from the soil. That’s it. Sometimes water and the minerals are not so abundant; we can help with those. Green plants are autotrophs—they are self-feeding. Given the materials mentioned above, they make all the sugar and chemicals they need to perform all their natural functions. Growth, both taller and wider, stronger, and they store a lot of energy in living tissue for the winter and other challenges. They are strong in an immune system sense and able to defend themselves very well from the hungry host of insects, fungi, and bacteria that accompany them through life.
Trees live a clean life, produce almost no waste, and have no kidneys. During the chemical process of photosynthesis, which occurs in cells that are green from the pigment chlorophyll, they release oxygen and water vapor as byproducts, while capturing and keeping the carbon from the split CO2 molecule to form simple sugars. These sugars are the basic building blocks and energy providers the trees use to manufacture every protein, every enzyme, indeed every cell and necessary molecule in their whole body. They ask for little from us, mostly for water, and ask to be left alone, to a greater extent, so that they can be as strong as possible and live a full life.
I will repeat this many times because it is the most important core idea about having healthy trees: “Any tree that gets the water IT wants will be healthy, full, with little dead wood, and strong enough to defend itself.” This is the one simple great truth. Water as required and watch your trees flourish. No one talks about water because they can’t sell it to you; they prefer weak, failing trees that are then over-fertilized, over-injected, over-pruned. Yes, it sure gets expensive to get tree care done. Throw all those heavily marketed ideas away, water your trees, and relax. And as to pruning, this is completely overdone. We live in a world that seems to value “a look” over health.
A tree is a balanced system. No leaves are designed to be extra, superfluous; they don’t grow just for some arborist to cut them off. All are needed, required, no waste. Let’s keep the natural allotment of leaves, make a lot of sugar, and have as strong a tree as possible.
Trees ask for little yet give so much: shade, soil stabilization around the world, community, living space for many other life forms. Then, of course, there are all the useful products from trees, uncountable: wood, fruit, rubber, rope, chemicals, drugs. Cruise through an economic botany text for a sample of the riches. Or just look around your home or kitchen for the many products from trees we take for granted every day. We do have a lot to be grateful for. Then there is the pleasure of forests, being inside a tree community. Trees can give us the strength to carry on, to see our problems in perspective. The forest experience can lower blood pressure, clear the mind, let us see the light. You just gotta love trees.
