Trees give us the oxygen we need, the shade we desire, the homes our wildlife needs, and many more. While I was walking home, I noticed that some of the newly planted little trees each had a wooden frame around them. It seemed odd to box the little tree in so I did some research and found that those frames are actually called “tree guards” and protect the young trees from any outside damage while invigorating their health. Guess wood protects wood after all.
Tree guards can only do so much
In a place where pollution, vandalism, traffic, and confined spaces run rampant, the city recognizes the dire need to protect the trees and ensure their longevity. After all, they are at least planting more of them. The website “Trees New York,” reports that tree guards tend to stop people from walking on the soil, which prevents soil compaction that robs the tree of minerals, water, and food. They also stop car doors from hitting the tree, which lowers the chances of the tree becoming infected. Another potential use of tree guards found on the website stems from its ability to stop dogs from mistaking the tree for a toilet, as dog waste has toxins that damage the tree.
However as you can see from this picture, pollution still finds a way to disturb the little tree in the form of candy wrappers, plastic straws, bottle caps, and even metro cards. While a great solution for tree survival, the tree guards need something extra to protect the soil from garbage. Maybe there should be a different design made out of steel or another impenetrable material. If trees can help out each other, we can do the same by improving upon this solution.
Hey Pabvitraa,
I agree with the points you made about why trees are so important. I actually never realized what the purpose of those wood frames were for. It’s actually pretty funny to think that something as simple as a wood frame can reduce the amount of damage done to trees. While this design has its limitations and flaws, I am glad that the city is doing something to protect the trees in the city rather than ignoring the issue. Especially since New York City is known to be a “concrete” jungle and not a “green” jungle, it’s imperative to keep the few existing plant-life from dying out.
It’s always interesting to compare the standards and expectations of different countries. You may be right that there needs to be a more inventive and rigorous way to protect these young trees so that they can reach maturation. Other than the ironic use of wood cut from another tree to protect a tree, these kinds of efforts would rarely if ever be seen in Korea, where I lived for a bit of my life. Now Korea has efforts to be more environmentally friendly, planting trees and encouraging the use of public transport. And whenever we’re not blaming our pollution on China, it’s nice to see trees line the streets of small avenues, which small flowerbeds and bushes filling all these nooks and crannies. But what’s weird is that you never see an ‘ugly’ tree, a young or old plant, a wilting flower. Almost as if they’re made of plastic, the nature I passed by everyday remained utterly unchanging, other than the changing color of … flowers? It was then I realized that for the sake of looks, flowers, bushes, and trees would constantly be cycled out. Trucks would arrive once every 2 to 3 months to rip out plants that had lost their liveliness, and replaced with new ones purchased from somewhere else. The illusion of a healthy earth was merely supported by the constant destruction of nature and replacing it. I hope that Korea can become more environmentally conscious than it is now to the point where we can one day worry about better ways to protect out environment, rather than pondering if we should protect our environment to begin with.