Calgary is unique city, sitting in a unique climate zone. Always been a tough place to be a tree. Before the first settlers arrived, there were four native trees. Three of them wisely stayed in the river valley, where there was water and protection from the fierce Chinook winds:
The Balsam poplar and, on the steep north facing slopes, the white spruce and the rocky mountain douglas fir.
Perhaps the toughest and bravest is the trembling aspen, the fourth native. This tree makes its home on the slopes of Nose Hill, CFCN hill, and seems to flourish where no other tree will grow.
Every other tree in calgary was introduced from somewhere else. All of these trees had to be tough. Siberia and Northern China were favorite places for North American plant hunters to go and find trees tough enough to live here.
What does this all mean? This urban forest is more fragile than it looks. Let’s take care of it, carefully.
All of nature’s living things have problems, parasites, and diseases. These are mostly seen in the weak and the unhealthy. Keep your trees properly cared for, and they reap the benefits, healthy trees with no problems.
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