Brief Introduction to the Stupidity of Man (a rant)

Does anyone actually think before they act anymore? Sometimes the stupidity of man (and woman) truly awes me. I will say however, it is far from awesome. Trying to enjoy my morning caffeine buzz in the living room and watching as one fat, lazy neighbor after another piles their bags of trash and un-broken-down cardboard on top of the garbage cans out front of our place. They do fill up but today there's plenty of room. I yell out the window. I do try and be polite and not rip their idiotic heads off, just asking if they could please try and.... It's futile, they're gone. They've retreated to their apartments. My God, what their homes must look like! I'm tempted to make signs and put them on the garbage cans. I've certainly thought this through as it has been an issue for over a year. They would read:

Please put garbage inside garbage cans.
Empty and breakdown your cardboard.
Leave recycling in clear bags.
Please Have Respect.

Even though the task would allow me in a bizarre and slightly twisted way to blow off some steam about the whole unnecessary matter I know they probably wouldn't do a damn thing. Chances are if my neighbors don't care about carelessly trashing a neighbors front stoop they sure aren't going to read a sign. It's started to rain and the garbage is still sitting there. I curse a bunch to myself and put on my raincoat. I step outside and put everything where it belongs. It's done and clean and I can go back to my day-off buzz. I've taken "the higher road". I chuckle and sigh. I'm reminded of our excellent dinner with Jayne and Chez last night at Fatty's Cafe. So fun to finally meet them, and hit if off, and very excited they might move to glorious Astoria. "Isn't it just a shame you can't go down to the low road and beat the hell out of those idiots sometimes, and then go back to the high road?" The joke goes over well and we all laugh in devilish agreement. I hear another rustling outside and return my attention over my left shoulder. Hey! She's putting her garbage inside the garbage cans! Amazing! "Thank you for being a conscientious neighbor", I smile through the screen. She looks at me like I have a third eye, takes her kid in her left hand, and walks off quickly. I keep thinking, now dwelling.

Following that insane series of thunderstorms that came pounding through New York last Sunday I was wondering if I would see some wind-damaged trees around the 'hood. Hours before our 6 o'clock surge of wind and water here in Queens my family was caught in a crazy wind, rain, and sand storm out at Maidstone Pavilion in Springs where the entire afternoon BBQ and open-air concert was annihilated in a matter of minutes. A week later they are still cleaning sand out of amps and trying to assess what made it. At least they got the baby and my fragile grandmother to the car in time. Frosty thought someone actually could have died with all that equipment flying around. Anyway, back to the morning commute. Sure enough right before the train station at Broadway and Steinway a major tree limb is down, broken off and laying on the sidewalk.

It's definitely a good size and I just hope no one was too close when it came down. That is a busy spot right there. People are rushing to and fro, barely slowed a bit by the debris. I, of course, turn into my natural geeky self that is arborboy, and slow down to inspect. It's an oak, and pretty young. It is the leader of the tree that is down, the central trunk. Without it's leader a tree rarely survives. The branches that are still on the tree look strong and flush with growth. The fallen branch is more brittle and there was obviously a lot of die-back and dead-wood now splintered on the ground. Then I look up again and see what the downfall of the tree was. Man.
Hard to see, but what you are looking at is a metal cable that had been wrapped around the trunk of this tree three times. For some reason unbeknownst to me, a nearby light post required a number of different cables be tied to it. I'm guessing for the holiday decorations that are put up in December. The oak was the lucky recipient of two such cables. One is seen in the photo above, the other mangled in the fallen limb where it was affixed. Apparently some genius, and by genius I mean total fucking idiot, thought it would be a good idea to use the tree to anchor the cables. Let me explain to you something us tree people call "girdling". In all trees the most vital part of their respiratory system is a layer called the cambium, just below the bark on the very outside of a trees hard trunk. The interior part of a trees trunk is called hardwood, and is not actively living like the outer-most rings of annual growth. The cambium, comprised of xylem and phloem, is the layer of living cells that carries water and nutrients up and down and throughout trees branches so that trees can live, photosynthesize, and grow. To girdle a tree is to cinch and destroy that layer of cells so a tree can't move around water and nutrients as it needs to. Girdling a tree is essentially like choking it to death. Eventually the upper limbs are not getting the life support they need and they die, malnourished and dehydrated. Arborists and tree climbers call huge branches of deadwood that come thundering down "widowmakers" for good reason. The limb of this oak was certainly on its way out and the wind storm just happened to move the process along a little more quickly. What a shame the cable guy didn't know more about the tree he sent to an early death. He might have appreciated that the tree removed pollutants and carbon dioxide from the air and in return provided fresh oxygen and cool shade in summer. He could have marveled at the fact that as a tree grows and gets older its ability to purify the air grows at an exponential rate and helps combat issues such as increased asthma rates in our urban youth and the heat island effect. Instead, he chose not to think. Again, I hope nobody got hurt.

Coming home that day I decided to walk up another street, one I don't frequent quite so often. I found someone had planted a young tulip tree in their front yard. Botanically we call this guy Liriodendron tulipifera.
It is a great tree. Granted you have to try and ignore the terrible "cedar" mulch at its base. Mulch is a good thing, but do you know what this "cedar" mulch is? Yeah, its typically recycled and shredded building material waste, (probably oak), that has been dyed with chemicals to resemble, to someone, cedar. If you find real cedar mulch you will see it is much more expensive and ages to a completely different color, gray, not fluorescent whatever-this-is. Next time, look at the list of ingredients. But nevermind peoples fascination with dousing their yards and gardens with chemicals, I'm here to talk trees. Liriodendron tulipifera is a tree indigenous to the northeastern US and its always pleasing to see natives in urban gardens. Tulip trees have big leaves with a very unique shape and in spring older trees get these amazing tulip-shaped blossoms that are green, orange and yellow. This picture my friend Erin Backus took at Longwood Gardens in 2005.
Usually I am thrilled to come across this tree. But in this instance there is one catch. Tulip trees can and want to grow to about 75 or 100 feet tall. They grow trunks straight as an arrow. Eventually their branching habit can lead them to shed a lot of wood so pruning and maintenance is a must if planted in a populated situation. Do you think the owner researched or asked about any of that before planting the above tree in his/her front yard? Yeah, I doubt it too. If only he/she had known that there are plenty of small native trees perfectly suitable for his/her front yard. If only they had thought. And that's the thing that kills me. In all of these cases, people could have, and it wouldn't have taken that much extra time or energy. In this day and age where everyone has a computer and a cell phone, communication and knowledge seems to be on the decline. How is that? God forbid you ask a question and admit you don't know everything. God forbid you learn something new. Let me introduce what the same tree could look like 100 years from now.
In horticulture school you learn about the value of the right plant in the right place. I try and teach that simple but invaluable concept as much as I can, but alas, a few people fall through my fingertips. Now think about the root system that the above tree must have when its that big. And then think about that little front yard with its "cedar" mulch laden strip of soil. And then reread the title of this blog. ...right?!?

It's now after 5pm and I'm getting a beer. Enjoy the evening y'all.

On the Stereo: The Clash, London Calling