from the ground up
To show the relative size of her trees , Frankie poses with her Swamp White Oak planted for free by the Tree Montgomery program ( see box on following page ).
How to build your Homegrown National Park at an affordable price
By Françoise ( Frankie ) André
My husband and I bought a fixer-upper house on Berryville Road five years ago just because we fell in love with its backyard . It has a view on both the Seneca Creek State Park and Berryville Road Conservation Park trees , and even better , it has its own very tall and majestic tulip poplar , sycamore and silver maple trees . For the better or worse , these trees threw a spell on us : we just wanted some more , and more , and more …
Up until now we have planted more than 40 trees — we have stopped counting — on our relatively small half-acre property ! When the count got high , every time we planted a new tree we promised ourselves that it will be the
last one . But somehow we always found a spot to squeeze a new one in . Once I even planted a good size river birch tree when my husband was traveling . When he came back home I was like : “ Surprise ! Do you notice anything new in our yard ?” Understandably he didn ’ t immediately figure out what was new . I guess it was a little bit like finding a needle in a haystack . Now every time he comes back from a trip , he is checking the yard first .
Halfway during our tree planting spree , one of my neighbors kindly offered me the book Nature ’ s Best Hope by Doug Tallamy . This book had a profound effect on me . While it is fine to plant a few ornamental trees , it explains how crucial it is to plant a good number of native trees since the local insects , which are essential to the survival of our ecosystems , are not adapted to imported plants . Moreover , it is important for every homeowner to create their own “ homegrown national park ” as the amount of undeveloped and protected land in the nation is not sufficient to prevent a collapse of our ecosystems .
After reading the book , we focused on planting exclusively native trees , shrubs and flowers , which now account for about half of those we have planted . We also felt vindicated that the book explains how good it is to plant a high density of trees like in a forest environment as their intertwined
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