Green and Go

The line of Joyce Kilmer in her poem Trees, “Only God can make a tree” is one good motivation to plant trees. Imagine, you’re a god if you are able to grow one or many trees. Another saying “You’re a complete man only when you have sired a child, written a book and planted a tree”. These incentives to plant trees were the common reasons why people plant trees till we realize there is global warming in our midst. Now, we are in a hurry to plant trees to fight it. There is also a Chinese saying, “the best time to plant trees was 100 years ago. The second best is Now”.

But the sad thing about tree planting is, it’s not as easy as you plant now and wait until it grows tomorrow. You have to take care of it, even more than the care you give to an infant which are: feed, bathe , allow him/her enough sleep and keep him/her warm and dry. With these for sure, he/she will survive and grow to be a healthy boy or girl. But, these do not apply to trees. Remember, the trees are exposed to all kinds of elements: the rain, sun, typhoons, drought, pests, roaming animals or even destructive humans. Hence, if you don’t take care of them with double the care you give to an infant, surely they will not survive.

In order to get better survival rate, seedlings are better planted during rainy season. If your farm happens to be off the road, which is normally the case, going there would entail walking on dirt or muddy pathways or even steep mountains. You’ll even be caught by rains if not typhoons visiting and caring for the trees. So, if you are a city guy not used to farm life, chances are, you would not like it. It’s nice to say I planted trees, but it’s nicer to say ‘these are the trees I planted years ago’. To grow these trees they need care and maintenance after planting. If they are not maintained, surely, they will not survive. For lack of these, most, if not all tree planting projects in recent memories failed miserably.

Modesty aside, my experience in tree planting has been a happy one though, because, not only my 20 years of experience has been paying me dividends but, also, the innovative techniques we are adapting are working. One of the latest one’s is the tree guard that protects the trees from invasive grasses, vines and other weeds. It’s made of plastic, smooth and glossy enough that weeds are prevented from crawling into the tree it is guarding. Weeds and vines will just slide on the surface of the plastic materials. To control its cost, we are using plastic materials (disposable type which can be recycled) that can last for 6 months only but that is just enough time for the seedlings to grow to their survival stage. For gmelina trees, 6 months is enough to grow at least 4 feet in height, tall and strong enough to withstand against their natural enemies and increase its chances to survive. In our experience, this tree guard doubled the survival rate of trees as the needed monthly maintenance is minimized.

The Centennial Committee on Tree Planting believes this will revolutionize tree planting in the country as constant clearing of the trees’ surroundings after planting is not necessary since the trees are protected from weeds until it grows to survival size. A lot of money and efforts have gone the drain on tree planting projects in the recent past. Rotary Club of Manila, through its creative members, should share their time and minds in pursuing effective and innovative ways of regreening the country, saving a lot of resources in the process.

There is a saying, ‘Innovate or Evaporate’. With trees they surely don’t evaporate, they just die along with the projects that plant and finance it! For me, may I say, “Innovate or we’re all dead!”