Protecting Baby Trees

          Last year volunteers joined the James River Association in planting trees along a riparian buffer between an agricultural field and the riverfront in rural Virginia.  The worksite was in a area where a thousand acres are protected by a conservation easement, thanks to the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, owners of several thousand acres dedicated to historic preservation and environmental education and conservation.

          Riparian buffers are important buffer zones that help reduce the impact of flooding, stabilize shoreline, provide shade and wildlife habitat, and protect rivers and streams against sediment, run off and pollution.

          Simply planting trees would have been easy.  But before planting nearly 1,500 native trees last year, first a lot of invasive Ailanthus altissima, or trees of heaven had to be removed.  Tree of heaven is an evil, aggressive tree originally from China.  A single tree can produce thousands of seeds each year, and, a tree's roots can sprout new trees that can produce seeds within two years.  But wait, there's more...the tree produces a chemical that kills whatever is growing around it, including native trees.  Try cutting it down and the stump will produce new trees!  The only thing is it good at is creating a dead zone among native trees and plants. 

          Once we removed the invasive trees, the next step was planting small native tree seedlings.  These seedlings, only eight to 12 inches tall, included birch, sycamore, wild cherry, oaks and other native trees.  Tree tubes were placed around the seedlings and staked into place.to protect the tiny trees.  Tubes allow sunlight in but protect tender seedlings and prevent animal grazing.

A Master Naturalist inspects a seedling by the James River.
I happen to know she has an I Love Baby Trees bumper sticker.

A healthy seedling

          Once the trees were planted, our work wasn't over.  This year, a year later, we inspected the trees to evaluate the survival rate.  Most of the trees were alive, although in the dormancy of early spring, we looked for tiny leaf buds rather than leaves.  We also had to rake away dead and competing plant material from around each tree to give it space to grow.

          Tubes remained in place unless we found a dead tree.  Damaged tubes were replaced and re-staked. Some tubes were damaged by animals.  Other tubes were damaged by vines.  A large area of the property is covered in Japanese hops vines, the new kudzu of vines.  Unfortunately, it isn't the right kind of hops to harvest for beer.  Seeds travel by water and can aggressively overtake a new area after flooding.  So, where did this awful vine come from?  It was introduced as a ornamental vine because someone somewhere thought it looked nice on a trellis.  It escaped into surrounding states and is doing its best to prevent our seedlings in Virginia from surviving.
 

Hops vines in pursuit of baby trees.

 

          We worked all afternoon on a cold, spring day.  A light drizzle fell near the end of our chores.  We found mice living in nests in some tubes and wasps in others.  One person found a black snake in a tube.  Despite the weather the work was gratifying.  After a few hours about 35 amazing volunteers had completed the job and more than about 1,300 baby trees were ready to begin a second year of survival, on their way to becoming giant, noble trees.

          I want to come back in a hundred years just to see those trees.