Slow Down in a Forest

Wow, the first season of the Circle Forest project is complete. It’s good to pause and take a breath, as we know that arboretum projects, like gardens, never end- they just continue to evolve and grow. Circle Forest has done a lot of evolving in the past three months. We have not only had to do lots of hard work but also to ask lots of difficult questions. We have opened up questions for which there are no immediate answers. What does “restoration” mean? What is “invasive?” And how would we as descendants of settler colonizers be the ones to call anything invasive?

One thing is crystal clear- we are honoring Mother Earth by improving her treatment. We have spent  hundreds of hours removing garbage and other evidence of the traumatic past few centuries. It has felt very rewarding to clean this space and make way for beauty and life.

We hosted a bonfire celebration on Halloween to honor all the amazing thoughtful volunteers who have come from all over the place to put in their sweat and shape the project with their ideas.

We have volunteers who would put in hours cleaning and beautifying and then return in the early morning or at sunset for a walk or to birdwatch. One of the most exciting things to come out of these first months is the bird list that Kyle has created from his observations. We will share this list here because it is so key to understanding how this space has been functioning before we got here to “restore” it. Kyle has observed 54 distinct bird species visiting the Circle Forest. So, while the trees here may not all be native they do offer something important. Each tree is a challenge to consider.

I have been observing a pecked out hole in the deadwood of an Ailanthus tree about 30 feet up. Obviously this tree has been useful to someone in the past so it definitely gave us pause in our objective of cutting out invasive trees. Of course the trees that are no longer photosynthesizing, some say “dead,” are super valuable as snags for birds to forage and nest in. We know this and so every tree is another unique situation in which we must weigh out the value this tree has for shade, oxygen, beauty, history, safety, habitat against the fact that it could shade out new native trees, it may appear not beautiful to visitors, it may be able to propagate itself quicker than other natives, our maybe it’s just that we have not yet found a place for her in our vision and aesthetic.

The message is slow down. Remember we’re working with the trees and we need to consider tree time. It’s so easy to forget this and get swept up into the whirlwind of human constructed timelines and deadlines. We are grateful for the glitches and delays that require a pause and a step back. One cannot possibly make all the decisions required for a large landscape design before entering the space and working with everything and everybody who is here. Let’s allow things to evolve and grow and the players peek out and speak to us. In this case the players are the trees, the birds, the plants, insects and fungi who showed up long before we ever even looked at this space. 

For more pictures from Circle Forest, visit www.arbdetroit/circle-forest

If you’d like to keep in touch about volunteer opportunities, sign up here.

Here’s Kyle’s list.