Originally published in The Garden Path, Summer 2024.  If you would like to get The Garden Path, we invite you to JOIN US as a member.

There is a tree I pass by every day while walking my dog. In the Knox County area when I live, trees are everywhere, but this one in particular stands out for its sheer size. An Eastern cottonwood, it towers over the neighboring oaks and maples, commanding attention, respect and — from me — love.

Big trees have always held an important place in my heart. They provide shade on hot days, protection for birds and squirrels, and food for multiple critters —all important functions. But they also measure time, living much longer than humans and reminding me that we are not the only important species on the planet.

Ohio was once covered border to border in trees — the comment was made that a squirrel could travel the tree tops from one side of the state to the other and never step foot on the ground.

Of course, that all changed when the land was cleared for farms in the 1800s. Trees had to be cut down, stumps grubbed, and crops planted. Nowadays, trees are cut down for a variety of reasons: they drop debris that needs to be cleaned, a homeowner is fearful one may fall on his house, or they are in the way of development. Many builders clear cut a property, preferring a clean slate with nothing in the way. And we are left with the cookie-cutter subdivisions we all know, with baby trees that will take years to provide the benefits the old trees did effortlessly.

There is a 40-acre stand of old growth pine “up north” in my home state of Wisconsin. Called Cathedral Pines, it was on land owned by the president of a lumber company, and he oversaw the removal of trees from thousands of acres of north woods. But his wife, Lucy, taught her kids to read the Bible under the trees, and in the early 1900s, she asked him to spare a small section of the forest. He did. I’ve visited this spot often, standing under the immense canopy created by trees that started growing about 300 years ago.

I applaud reforestation efforts, and urban projects that add trees along the streets. Sometimes these projects replace trees that died because of disease or insects. But often, they are patchwork projects filling in the gaps made after perfectly healthy, beautiful, beneficial trees were removed for questionable reasons.

Yes, let’s restore those forests. But saving them in the first place is even better.