Gardening – A pocket forest

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of trees. Over the past seven years, we have created a “pocket forest” on our berm and transformed our Manly property that was essentially Kikuyu grass. We now have food trees that provide a range of fruit, trees to shade and cool our home, and tree leaves, branches and twigs to absorb and deflect the vehicle noise by reducing sound waves, and tree roots that reduce the impact of heavy rainfall and stop flooding.

Tree roots are fascinating; they are really like our brains as the cells at root tips work together testing the soil to monitor moisture, alerting the leaves when to close the stomata and stop producing sugars. They use gravity to make sure roots grow down and use light sensors for roots that grow across slopes. 

Tree bark is composed mainly of dead cells and is similar to our skin protecting tree trunks from the elements, warding off fungal infections, while fissures and cracks in the bark provide hidden habitats for invertebrates to live their lives hidden from hungry birds.

Studies are showing that soil microbes are not the only sink for methane, but that microbes in the bark of trees play a vital role in removing methane from the atmosphere, yet 15 billion trees are lost each year to deforestation.

Our future in these times of climate change is entwined with trees which remove green-house gases, which is just as well as there are 60,065 different tree species currently known to science. But it takes about 450 trees to offset the annual emissions of one person.

The rarest tree in the world is Pennantia bayisiana and is found in New Zealand on the Three Kings Islands, while in Papua New Guinea they have the rainbow eucalyptus with rainbow coloured bark! The Ginko biloba species have been here since dinosaurs roamed the world and is one of the oldest trees.

In 1971, tree seeds were taken on the Apollo 14 moon mission to see if when they were planted back on Earth in 1975/76 by the US Forest Service, they would grow any differently. They did not!

My little urban pocket forest on the berm also provides a unique opportunity for the children from the local kindy to engage with nature on their walks to the local park. There are scented plants, a diversity of flowers to pick, stunning seed pods and of course butterflies and skinks all within arm’s reach. They thank me by leaving painted rocks in my letter box!