We guarantee you won’t be far from a tree if you step outside your door; unless you live in the desert, of course. We are surrounded by a wide range of trees, ranging from pine and oak to willow and ash.
And, while they’re all lovely to look at, their significance goes much beyond that. Trees have great value and function, and their continued existence is critical to our survival
Benefits of planting trees
The majority of the time, we plant trees to give shade and to enhance the appearance of our landscapes. These are excellent advantages, but trees also give a variety of additional, less evident advantages.
Social benefits
- Trees make living more pleasant. It has been demonstrated that spending time in and near trees and green spaces helps to lessen the amount of stress that we carry with us throughout our daily lives.
- Spending time outdoors in green settings has been found to help children recall more of the information they are taught in school.
- Trees are frequently planted as living memorials or mementoes of loved ones, or to mark the anniversaries of major events in our lives, among other reasons.
Communal benefits
- It is possible that your neighbours will benefit from the trees on your property even though you own them.
- Trees may be an advantage to the entire community if they are planted with care.
- Unwanted views or sounds from busy roadways might be blocked off by strategically placed trees.
- Architecture and design of structures, as well as entire neighbourhoods, can be enhanced by the presence of trees.
Environmental benefits
- Trees help to lessen the urban heat island effect via evaporative cooling and by lowering the amount of sunlight that reaches parking lots and other structures in metropolitan areas. These conditions are especially prevalent in regions with large impervious surfaces, like parking lots for stores and industrial complexes, which are particularly susceptible to flooding.
- Trees improve the quality of our air by removing harmful dust and pollutants from the air we breathe, such as ozone, carbon monoxide, and sulphur dioxide, before they reach our lungs.
- Trees release oxygen into the atmosphere, which we all need to breathe.
- Increasing the amount of stormwater runoff minimises erosion and pollution in our waterways, which may help to mitigate the consequences of flooding.
- Many different types of wildlife rely on trees for their habitat. Many species of birds and mammals rely on trees for food, shelter, and a place to call home.
Economic benefits
- By shading your home’s south and west sides in the summer, strategically planted trees can help you save money on your cooling bills. If you select deciduous trees, they will allow the sun to penetrate through and warm your home in the winter.
- On the north side of your home, evergreen trees and bushes around the foundation can act as a windbreak, reducing the cooling effects of winter winds on your home.
- The value of a well-landscaped home with mature healthy trees can be as much as 10% higher than a similar home with no or little landscaping.
- Some of the indirect economic benefits of trees include the fact that if we limit the amount of energy we consume, utility providers will have less demand placed on their infrastructure, resulting in lower operating expenses that can be passed on to consumers.
Fastest growing Christmas tree
Most Christmas tree varieties grow at a rapid pace, but cypress and cedar trees are particularly quick. In particular, Leyland Cypress and Eastern Redcedar are mentioned. The maintenance of both of these kinds will allow them to grow from a seedling to a height of 5–7 feet in five years. Climates with high temperatures are best suitable for these species. Pines, such as White Pine, Virginia Pine, and Scotch Pine, are the fastest-growing Christmas trees for cooler climates. During the next six years, they will attain their full height.
Types of plantation
Christmas tree farms
Adventurous people can make a living by cultivating Christmas trees. Christmas tree cultivation is a multifaceted activity that includes growing trees for ornamental purposes, such as pine, spruce, and fir, as well as horticulture.
However, even after the establishment of the first Christmas tree farm in 1901, the majority of consumers continued to purchase their trees from forests until the late 1930s and early 1940s. Christmas tree farming was originally seen as a viable alternative for low-quality farmland, but that attitude has shifted in the agriculture business in recent years. Land should be flat or gradually rolling, with little or no debris or undergrowth, to produce the best yield and quality possible.
Eucalyptus
Throughout the twentieth century, scientists all around the world experimented with several species of Eucalyptus. In the 1960s and 1980s, innovations in species selection, silviculture, and breeding programmes “unlocked” the ability of eucalypts to grow in the tropics, although most experimental outcomes were disappointing. Before it, as Brett Bennett pointed out in a 2010 piece, eucalyptus trees were considered to be a kind of “El Dorado” of the forestry world. In today’s globe, eucalyptus is the most extensively planted type of tree in plantations all over the world, including South America (primarily in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay), South Africa (particularly in the Cape Provinces), Australia, India, Galicia, Portugal, and many other places.
Teak
In forestry, plantation teak refers to a tropical hardwood tree belonging to the genus Tectona that is unique to Southeast Asia and is planted exclusively for forestry management, whether for commercial timber plantations or ecological restoration. Even though the genus Tectona is endemic to tropical Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Myanmar, India, Bangladesh, and Thailand, the cultivation of plantation teak is commercially viable in Other tropical regions, such as Central America and the Caribbean, which are also affected.
Conclusion
Regardless of future rates of plantation establishment, plantation forests will play an increasingly important role in satisfying future wood and fibre demands over the next 30 years. Forest plantation wood supplies over the next decade will be mostly determined by trees growing in the ground. The majority of the time, we plant trees to give shade and to enhance the appearance of our landscapes. These are excellent advantages, but trees also give a variety of additional, less evident advantages. When you plant trees, you are generally doing so for forestry, land reclamation, or landscaping purposes.