BushBlog: Trees & How They Are Appreciated by Their Communities

I have an opinion that in general, trees belong to all of us. I like trees. They feel good to me. Growing up in St. Petersburg, Florida, I learned very early in my driving (and parking) career to seek the 'shady spots' in parking lots. Now that I've been driving a long time, I'd hoped that the parking lot builders would have gotten the picture by now.

Heck, I'd hoped people would have 'gotten the picture' by now! Certainly some have, and celebrate the value of our trees. For others we have Tree Ordinances - at least in enlightened communities - because city leaders must have agreed with me that trees belong to no one person, they belong to all of us and the trees (and us!) need to be protected from those that would rather not rake leaves or pick up downed fruit or object to having a branch fall or don't like pollen or roosting birds....

While I am certain I will extoll again and again regarding my feelings about trees, this one instance proved just too good to ignore.

I'm presently living in Carpinteria with my wife while we are sorting out our next adventure - and have wonderful friends who have made their garage apartment available to us for most of the summer, "housing benefactors" I call them! We have spent quite a bit of time in "Carp" (nicknames for towns are another topic opportunity!) and I drive past a glorious pine tree nearly every day on some sort of errand or another.

The town has chosen to celebrate this particularly robust specimen with its own lot and identification and placard.

And let me tell you - this tree is HUGE. While our State Redwoods and Douglas Fir are certainly much larger, this tree can hold its crown high and not be in anytree's back seat! This large surface root is as big around as my arm - and grows 30' from the trunk.

How can I properly show scale in a photo? I lay on the ground to take the photo and used my own feet!

While not truly native to the site in downtown Carp in the current biological sense, Torrey Pines (Pinus torreyana), are only known to grow on Santa Rosa Island and at Torrey Pines State Reserve in San Diego. This tree was grown from seed collected on Santa Rosa Island and planted at this very spot in 1888. Now it is over 130' tall and 30' in circumference! This tree has truly found a spot that suits it.

Montecito, another local community here on the Central Coast, is an unincorporated area of Santa Barbara County that prides itself as being "semi-rural" and trees cover much of the community, although not as much today as last week. All I can say is that if you enjoyed sipping your "low-fat soy chai latte vente de-caf" at the outside tables of the Starbucks on Coast Village Road - and part of your enjoyment was the nicely shaded patio - you're toast. And if the sun comes out and heats up, that could well be literal(!) as the very large California Sycamore that shaded the entry patio to Starbucks was cut down late last week.

While I can't fathom why, I also didn't choose to ask - certainly the hardworking coffee-jocks behind the counter don't have purview over landscape decisions that affect the entire community. Oddly, this strip of Coast Village Road is actually within the City of Santa Barbara, so there may well have been a successful permitting process - or perhaps the City ordered it removed for it is very close to the sidewalk and may well be within the City 'Right-of-Way'.

Whatever the reason, and whether or not the removal was properly permitted, removing a tree of that size in an area that several thousand people saw on their daily cruise on the CVR and that shaded many people in their leisurely pursuit of caffeinated happiness just doesn't seem to be sensible. Without being socialistic about it, I think there are times that trees just belong to us all.