Even if you have not heard the term “nurse log”  you have likely seen them on your hikes in the forest. These are the fallen trees who surrender themselves to the forest. Some people can’t see the forest for the trees; well, these trees can’t see themselves for the forest. These are trees that have dissolved their egos, if trees ever do have egos. By this metaphor I mean to say that  more than individuals in the forest, the trees are forest. This is especially evident when the tree no longer stands with the attributes of an Oak, a Maple, or a BIrch, but is halfway to soil, subsumed by the other trees who now relish her sponge of nutrients and moisture.

Forest is forest; it’s not just a bunch of individual trees. When trees fall they are still and ever a part of the forest. The fallen limbs, leaves, and trunks become both giant vitamins and drip irrigation systems. The wood lays on the floor spending perhaps another hundred years soaking up water and cooling the soil below as it decomposes and becomes home to fungi, moss, bacteria, lichen, plants, trees, invertebrates, ants, snails, birds, rodents and many more beings that we cannot see, and thus a decomposing trunk is likely to comprise about 40% living cells, whereas a standing tree is only likely to have only about 5%. This is because life in a standing tree resides mostly in the cambium, the outer growing layer just under the bark. Really makes one ask the question: what do we mean by “alive?” I can’t look at a tree on the ground and call her “dead.” It’s truer to call them hosts, nurse logs, or nursery logs. These are the spaces where life is most abundant. And this is why coarse woody debris is an integral part of the forest. Without it what we have is at best a park or a tree farm.

These fallen trees stabilize the forest and the landscape. On hillsides and mountainsides fallen trees prevent the sliding of soil; they capture and hold the organic matter rather than allowing it to wash down the slope. These trees have spent a lifetime sequestering carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in their wood; when they fall they offer this carbon to the saprotrophs who fix it into the soil. Aren’t trees endlessly amazing? We are finally beginning to watch trees closely enough to learn their valuable teachings about how to live on this planet. They have been here for around 370 million years compared to we who just got here 300,000 years ago. Is it any wonder that we struggle to imagine the experience and knowledge trees possess about relation to Earth? They are so generous, so humble, and yet the most exquisite technology the world will ever know.

Do you remember the “conservation of matter” grade school from elementary science class? Nothing enters or leaves the system of the Earth. That gave me a lot to consider when I first heard it. It gives me a lot to consider even now. When I think about old growth forests, the ones that have been allowed to just be forests, I see this concept at work. True forests just fold in on themselves, rise and fall in waves just like the ocean in infinitesimally slow motion. We barely know what this looks like or what happens here because we (modern human settler colonists anyway) saw only resources and began cutting. As soon as we pulled the first timbers from these forests the system was disturbed, the chain interrupted. When we removed everything and left barren earth whole ecosystems vanished. We undid millions of years in about one hundred. Now we are left with only these tiny rare pockets of true forest. Capitalism can leave nothing alone. Capitalism doesn’t look back or take responsibility. So, how can we see what it’s done to our planet and to ourselves? Can we let them be? We struggle to give forest even a hundred years to begin to sing again?

All this to say that one of the lessons of the Circle Forest is the conservation of matter. We are not taking anything out of the forest except the garbage that has accumulated over the past few decades. We are using the project to demonstrate the power of fallen trees and coarse woody debris to generate life. Any invasives that were cut, or trees that have fallen remain in the forest to give themselves back to the forest. Even if this Siberian Elm is deemed invasive and is not allowed to propagate here as a Siberian Elm, she is still a welcome part of the forest, hugged by fungi, moss, and lichen until she is subsumed by the Oaks and Pines who replace her.

What this means for the Circle Forest is that we are looking at ways to organize the woody debris in a way that keeps it out of footpaths and puts it into the consciousness of visitors. We want an aesthetic demonstration of nurse logs and their importance. We are very excited and inspired by this puzzle. We are building a log raft, a stump scape, and a forest critter path. The challenge has been fruitful and fun. This is just one of the ways that we are assisting this forest in being her best self.

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.

Circle Forest is happening! We are so encouraged by the big hearts and strong hands of the dozens of volunteers who have been getting this project going in these early days. We’ve had folx from Lansing, Ann Arbor, East Side, West Side, and across the street.  A community is forming around this project unlike any we have undertaken. We seem to be speaking the same inspiration and working together to make a special place that speaks to the past and the future. What else could we ask for? 

It’s been hard work and everyone is energized by the huge accomplishments. We filled our first dumpster with garbage excavated from the forest. It really feels like the forest and we can really breathe in there now. We pulled iron bed frames, mattresses, kiddie pools, hoses, hundreds of feet of chain link and barbed wire, vintage styrofoam, carpeting, shingles, tires, and other strange relics of man. 

We’ve created about 50 yards of inviting pathways into and through the woods. We cleared English Ivy from trees and paths and replaced it all with fresh wood chips of all varieties and fragrance. Working in the circle forest is a refreshing olfactory reset. Imagine three hours of just first oxygen and cedar wood chip wafts. 

As we gain access to new sections of the forest we are clearing more garbage and doing an assessment of the canopy and inventorying tree species. We are faced with tough decisions and reckoning about labels such as “invasive” and “native” and what these mean for our project. We have to weigh out a tree's desire to be in this forest, the benefits it has offered long before we got here, and its ability to share and even support native trees. We hesitate to cut most trees in the forest sections of the project, understanding the assistance they will offer the new trees both in stress reduction from shade and existing mycorrhizae community. This means that we want to honor both the trees and fungi that exist here and have made the forest what it is. 

Of course even the “dead” trees are full of life and have a key role here. Even using the word “dead” gives me pause because often trees that are no longer photosynthesizing harbor more life than when they were. We will remove trees that are weak and in danger of falling and leave the snags. These are “dead” wood trees that harbor lots of insects, birds, and even new trees. We believe it is important to keep all the woody debris we find and create on the site. All of this biomass provides moisture retention, habitat, and fertilizer for life. Part of what makes a forest a forest is its ability and desire to subsume itself, to recycle all and bring it back to life.

——— What’s next? ———

Over the coming weeks we will be terraforming. We will take this flat land and help it dance. We will bring undulations to the landscape by forming small hills with valley rings around them. This will allow us to import better soil into the rings into which we will plant the tree groves. Each ring will welcome a different species that will join forces and grow as a family. The mound in the center of each ring will shed water to the trees, giving them a better shot at long term survival in this climate chaos.

The last two volunteer workdays for the season are 3pm to 6pm on Sundays October 17th and 31st, with fire and soup at 6pm. If you have a group you would like to bring ( 4 people or more ), please email us and we can arrange a different time that suits your group’s schedule.

And lastly, we are celebrating the closing of this first phase of the project on Halloween, with - guess what - a fire at 6pm after the workday, with food and music. You’re welcome to join us!

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You can donate to this project here, or Venmo @arbdetroit

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           3100 Palmer st. Detroit, MI 48211 ---   www.arbdetroit.org/circle-forest —- treetroit@gmail.com