I never wanted to be a tree killer
You've likely seen the Million Trees LA ads about town, at bus stops and billboards and, more controversially, on Shrek posters. Yes, Villaraigosa's pushing Los Angeles to plant a million more trees in our city as part of his environmental initiatives, and we're already 110,000 trees closer to meeting this proud goal -- except we're counting trees that aren't planted!
As David Zahniser's article today points out, the city's giving away little trees and counting them as planted -- and freebie-loving treehuggers are snapping these up, some with no intention of planting them.
Worse, I've inadvertently become one of these treehugging tree killers!
It started innocently enough. On my way out from a pre-emmys party a couple weeks ago, I saw a bunch of little seedlings for the taking and nabbed one for myself. I'm not quite sure what I thought it was -- a house plant, I guess.
Turns out, this seedling's a would-be tree! If I'd known this at the time, I wouldn't have taken one -- but in my defense, I didn't even know these were little trees -- though perhaps I should have asked -- and I certainly didn't have to had to fill out a "pledge to plant" form like a woman quoted in the article did.
On the upside, I've lavished a lot of attention on this cute seedling, keeping it on the ledge above my kitchen sink and watering it daily. However, I noticed a couple days ago that it seems to be drying up, its top leaves curling into itself.
I guess trees don't like being confined to 1-inch plastic cube. After reading the article this morning and realizing what I have is a tree, I replanted it -- into a slightly larger container on my balcony. Okay -- I realize this isn't the ideal situation, but I live in a small apartment in Santa Monica without a plot of land to call my own.
What to do? I'm now desperately seeking a tree adopter, but the prognosis is dire -- Larry Smith of North East Trees is quoted saying only 1 in 4 seedlings are expected to survive -- which is why more hardcore environmental and tree activists like TreePeople advise a more slow and steady, less numbers-driven approach to tree planting.
Anyone else get a freebie tree from the city at one of the 187 tree adoption events? What's happened to your tree since?
Photos by Siel
