Cash News
Trees.
Because they produce oxygen, life on earth could not exist without them. They cool us in their shade, delight us with their fall colors, reduce our stress and clean the air we breathe.
But, according to numerous resources, tree numbers have drastically declined in the past half-century.
After learning that the area’s tree canopy has declined from 50 to 18 percent in his lifetime due to development, climate change and disease, Paul Abbey, 73, of Kirtland, founded Rooted in Trees.
Since Abbey retired from the investment firm he founded, now called Fairport Wealth, Rooted in Trees has become a central focus for his skills in developing relationships.
Trees — especially the big ones forming a canopy overhead — have surrounded Abbey since he was a boy in Bradford, Pennsylvania, enjoying treks through the forest on fishing excursions with his father. He and his wife, Connie, have lived for more than 25 years in a Kirtland home, its 15 acres surrounded on three sides by the Holden Arboretum. He enjoys leisure time outdoors, walking and playing golf.
He gained an early appreciation for trees, something he’s passionate about sharing with others. Trees are basic to our survival, he believes, and educating young people to understanding that is key.
“Planting a tree and then watching it grow establishes a relationship — a sense of ownership,” he said. “We’ve learned that introducing a child to the Holden Arboretum in third through sixth grade helps to establish a lifelong love of nature.”
Trees change carbon dioxide to oxygen, a byproduct of photosynthesis, which makes life on Earth possible and mitigates global warming. According to the National Forest Foundation, a mature tree can absorb a half a metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent in one year. U.S. forests offset about 16 percent — or three decades worth — of greenhouse gas emissions from cars, trucks and power plants, the Foundation claims.
“A canopy of trees keeps our homes cooler, makes our air cleaner, buffers noise and pollution and increases wildlife habitat,” Abbey says. “A walk in the woods lowers the heart rate and is a natural stress reducer.”
Trees that live for decades and grow to create an overhead canopy are favored for planting by Rooted in Trees, which forges partnerships with groups of young people and leads the effort to plant and care for them. The organization has planted trees at Mentor Public Library, Lake Erie College, the Mentor Marsh at an Orchard Hills park trailhead in Chester Tonwship and around a village-owned field in Kirtland Hills that’s now growing corn.
Its Mentor Marsh project planted 25 trees in June at the edge of the marsh to help prevent further contamination by salt from the adjacent Morton Salt mine, which covers 12 square miles beneath Lake Erie.
The 801-acre marsh, which is a federally designated National Natural Landmark, suffered dramatically in 1966 when salt-mine tailings leached into Blackbrook Creek, killing marsh plants and trees. The land was overtaken by phragmites — tall non-native reed grass that regularly caught fire, further destroying native plant species and wildlife.
The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, which co-owns the marsh, began restoration efforts in 2015, spraying the phragmites with an aquatic-safe herbicide and mashing them flat. Since then, more than 180 species of native plants, including those threatened with extinction, have sprouted in the marsh and rare wildlife has returned. Yellow perch fingerlings and northern pike are using the marsh as a nursery, and river otters, beavers and muskrats are back.
However, in winter, when the road to the mine is crowded with trucks picking up road salt to de-ice the area’s roads, the passing vehicles spread waves of salt into the marsh, again threatening its plant and animal populations. In June, Rooted in Trees planted rows of Swamp White oak, Sycamore, Freeman maple, Silver maple and Black gum to block the salt-laden air generated by the trucks.
Rooted in Trees buys and plants trees that are 8 to 10 inches tall and with proper care can be expected to grow 6 to 15 inches a year. Its fundraising component pays for the trees, which usually are purchased from area nurseries.
Sugar maples, the tree responsible for the production of maple syrup, are not among the trees planted by Rooted in Trees.
“That’s because it’s become too warm here in Northeast Ohio for them to thrive,” Abbey explained.
They grow better in Canada and cooler states such as Wisconsin and Vermont, he said.
Rooted in Trees has learned from mistakes made in the past and instead of planting just one variety of tree plant several kinds.
“Monocultures are to blame,” said Abbey, referring to the near extinction of elm, chestnut and ash trees. “When the same kind of tree is planted everywhere, diseases take hold and spread quickly.”
Hundreds of thousands of elm trees were canopies for entire neighborhoods until 80 years ago, when Dutch elm disease spread and destroyed them. Disease-resistant varieties have since been developed, and Lewis & Clark elms are among the Rooted in Trees project planted for the village of Kirtland Hills along the edge of village-owned land in the valley that’s planted in corn this year.
American chestnuts, which once numbered in the billions, became functionally extinct after another fungal disease attacked and killed most of them. Ash trees, planted to replace elm trees, have been the most recent tree affected by a disease that threatens to destroy all of them.
Beech leaf disease recently has been identified, but some beech trees show a resistance to it. Scientists at the Holden Arboretum are seeking to find resistant trees so they can use them to develop a variety of beech that is resistant to the infection that kills them in a few years.
Abbey was instrumental in the Arboretum’s merger with the Cleveland Botanical Garden, resulting in Holden Forests and Gardens, and has served on its board of directors and in other capacities for 40 years. His wife, Connie, is the daughter of the late Henry Norweb Jr., who led the arboretum from 1959 to 1983. The couple has two daughters and several grandchildren, including twins born in Chicago just two weeks ago.
Learn more
Want to help restore Northeast Ohio’s valuable tree canopy? See RootedinTrees.org for answers to questions about the importance of trees, how to plant them and which trees work best in this climate. Find out how you can help or donate to the effort.