URBAN GROWTH
ENVIRONMENTAL DRAMA
There is something enduring about a book. Generally, we don’t toss them in recycling after we have read them, and who would think of lining a bird cage with pages from a book?
The experience of reading a book is a deep dive into a chosen topic. Consider these:
Big Lonely Doug. This is a story about the second-largest Douglas fir tree in Canada that is about much more than one tree. It is an education in modern forestry and an insight into how naturally occurring forests work versus the second-growth versions that are planted by the hand of humankind.
In Big Lonely Doug, author Harley Rustad paints a picture of a man who has a conscience and a heart despite his history as a forest surveyor for “big timber.” Dennis Cronin was responsible for flagging areas to be clear cut. One day back in 2011, while surveying a first-growth timber stand near Port Renfrew, on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island, he stopped short at the base of a massive Douglas fir. He flagged it for preservation and by doing so, he managed to change the history of B.C.’s forestry industry.
If you love trees as we do, you will be interested to learn that the forests of coastal British Columbia are denser with biomass than forests found in the tropics, where the greater heat breaks down dead matter more quickly. A fallen log in the B.C. rainforest can take over a century to break down.
Rustad explains that, in 1997, a University of B.C. professor named Suzanne Simard published a study that proposed radical notions about the depth of ecological relationships in forests. By injecting a mature Sitka spruce with a harmless radioactive isotope, she was able to trace the path of the isotopes using a Geiger counter. Sugars were created by the tree in exchange for carbon dioxide, and as the sugars travelled down the tree’s trunk into the ground, they were dispersed into a network of mycorrhizal fungi, “and up into neighbouring trees. The strands of fungi were, in fact, tubes of a superhighway tunnel system, a massive underground network that connected trees together.”
Based on Simard’s groundbreaking work - pun intended - it was determined that Big Lonely Doug supported 42 smaller trees within its underground reach.
This book is a deep dive into the history of Canada’s forestry industry and the current, more hopeful situation in which Canadians on the west coast find themselves. Fact is, there is hope for the remaining old-growth forest and much of the reforested land across the country.
By reading this book, we discovered a deeper meaning for saving our forests, for replenishing clear cuts and for reforesting our cities as well.
The benefits of preserving trees and planting more of them are many. It is all in the book.
Author: Harley Rustad. Publisher: Anansi, The Walrus. $22.95
Escape To Reality. Every good book should be an escape. We wrote this one as a special escape.
We’ve been working on this book for over three years, taking time to reflect on the meaning of the gardening experience. Between us, we have the benefit of two generations of insights. Taken together with the lessons taught to Mark by his father, Len, and the teachings of “The Professor” - John A. Weall, Len’s mentor, counsellor and business partner during their days running Weall & Cullen Nurseries.
We are very excited about this new book. Escape to Reality: How the World is Changing Gardening and Gardening is Changing the World is about fresh, healthy food, clean air, pollinators, native plants and the benefits of the horticultural social-exchange that occurs every time a gardener sets foot in the dirt. It is also about the need to fail, the surprising places where inspiration can spring from and it is about hope. We think every gardener should read it. Certainly, if every Canadian did read it, we could share a better understanding of the natural world just outside our back door.