Trees!

We have trees!  In the photo, Emma and Amelia play near our new cypress tree, planted as part of a neighborhood project.

Some of you may know that for months, now, I've been working hard for our subdivision to get these trees through a  county grant.  We live in one of those newer production-home subdivisions where the developer scrapes the earth clean, scoops out retention ponds, and uses the dredged earth as fill for postage-stamp-sized treeless lots. 

Why did we buy here? It was within our price range and close to work.  We were tempted by another community which is supposedly designed like an affordable Celebration. However, that community wasn't affordable enough to make up for the longer commute; it's also much closer to a working landfill and coal-burning power plant, and while I hadn't yet read Sandra Steingraber's Having Faith, we were both concerned about raising small children so close to active pollutors.  The home we finally purchased is built across the street from an inactive landfill, for which the records were lost in a fire, so no one is quite sure what's down there; however, annual water testing has failed to turn up any malign influences.  But I digress.

The point is, our subdivision desperately needs trees.  The developer put only two trees by each home, one plopped in the center of the front yard, one plopped in the center of the back yard.  I suspect the trees were not watered until homeowners moved in; in any event, many died, including one of ours, and we did water.  As a result, little shades our homes from the rather brutal sun, and drivers speed down our streets like they're still on the nearby expressway. Occasionally bewildered wild creatures such as cranes or turtles wander through our streets, wondering where their habitat went.  It's terrible.

So, in 2002 when my husband was elected to our homeowner's association board, one of his frst acts was to initiate the application process for the county tree grant.  Sadly, our application fell through because no one on the board had the time to do the requisite neighborhood canvassing.  In order to qualify for trees, we needed 75% of our homeowners to promise to plant and maintain them.  Our 250-home community isn't that large by area standards, but still, getting 75% of homeowners to do anything is a challenge.

Eventually, I realized that his term of office was going to end and we weren't going to have trees unless I worked a little harder myself. I wasn't sure I could pull it off, but I knew I could do better than our previous attempt. 

So beginning last March, I've been working my (  ) off for these trees.  I sent out numerous letters, organized a team of people to go door-to-door, organized a neighborhood meeting, followed up with phone calls and email messages, and somehow, managed to get us to 75%.  You'd think that people would be eager to get a free tree, but it turns out there are lots of tree haters out there.  Add the tree-haters to those who won't answer the door/phone/email/mail to those who claim to like trees but not the particular tree the county would give them to those who don't want trees cluttering their landscape (offhand I can think of at least 5 people who felt their landscape was too pretty to put a tree in front of--would that it were so) and you have a sizeable group of people.

Once we qualified for the trees, then we needed to neighbors to actually do the planting.  I called, emailed, mailed, cajoled people, and then--the day we were supposed to plant--Hurricane Charley made an appearance.  Cleanup from Charley occupied the county for quite awhile, but when we were able to finally reschedule the trees, Hurricane Frances roared through.  (My disappointment was outweighed by relief that we hadn't planted the trees immediately before the hurricanes only to have the winds tip them over.)

After each storm, neighbors would call me to say they didn't want trees anymore because trees are "too dangerous" during hurricanes. Actually, once these trees are established, they will protect our homes during hurricanes by forming a windbreak.  None of the trees are sizeable enough to fall on houses; none are varieties such as the fragile laurel oak that caused so much damage last fall; none is prone to disease or pests.  According to the county extension service, most of the area's recent roof damage occurred in communities without trees.  But some people cannot be persuaded from their fears by mere scientific fact. (You know that possibly apocryphal Winston Churchill quote about how spending 5 minutes with the average voter would put you off democracy?  Well, that goes double for a homeowner's association.)

We finally scheduled our first post-hurrican-season tree planting (one of three planting days) to begin last weekend, and I was panicked.  We had 83 trees to plant and very few volunteers willing to help plant them.  Given how many people think nothing of bothering my husband with complaints about the community (that house doesn't mow the lawn often enough, the other house has too many cars parked on the street, what about the loud music those people play, and is that family ever going to fix its screen door?), it was particularly aggravating to hear all the feeble excuses for not helping.

My neighbor (one of the Stepford neighbors) is an example---he had promised to help, but when I called to remind him of our start time he said, "Well, I've been meaning to talk to you about that.  You see, I teach, and this time of year is really busy for me.  Also, I'm putting new sod in my backyard that morning with Mark from down the street."

As though *I* don't teach?  As though *I* am not really busy this time of year?  And on top of that, I'd just hung up the phone on Mark from down the street, and he had promised to help with the tree planting!

So I asked him, "I can count on you to plant your OWN tree, right?" 

"Well, I've been meaning to tell you that too.  I've decided I don't want a tree," he said.  "Why?" I asked him, thinking maybe he was worried about hurricanes.  "Because I thought about it and I don't want one," he snapped.  Never mind that these trees had already been preordered, that we need a certain number of trees to qualify, that too many gaps along the street spoil the effect, or that it's awfully rude to back out of a signed agreement by waiting until I happen to call you 36 hours before the event. 

Anyway, I fretted and worried and never managed to find the 30-40 volunteers the county wanted to see . . . but when planting day arrived, at least 20 people showed up!  Neighbors I hadn't even met yet showed up to help!  We divided up into teams and planted all 83 trees. We had only one ugly scene with a neighbor (she ended up screaming "I hope you have a heart attack and DIE" at my husband shortly before she threw her "yard of the month" sign at him . . . no, I am not making this up) but otherwise, things went off without a hitch. 

Now we have trees lining the entrance street to our subdivision and lining my block.  People have already commented that as young as these trees are, they already make a difference in how our subdivision looks.  I just hope people are watering them (5 gallons a day, every day, until Christmas)!  And I hope we have as good a volunteer turnout for our next two planting days. 

It's absolutely terrific to see all that hard work start to pay off.  (Very different than my other community service efforts lately--the Kerry/Castor campaigns and collective bargaining at work, where the management team just  called a halt to bargaining last week and initiated impasse proceedings.  Depressing.) 

And hard as I worked to make it happen, trees would never have been planted without the help of others.  For me, seeing so many neighbors bring our streetscape to life made our subdivision feel like a neighborhood for the very first time.