Sounds odd I know. I was curious when I read this headline as it was ironic to find it under the “Building Green” Section of the NAHB (National Associsation of Home Builders) website. The author purposely entitled the article this way to catch attention and it worked. I quickly clicked through to read about it.
The article was about 4 development companies in the US that were honored by the National Arbor Day Foundation – not for using trees to build – but for taking into consideration the impact their developments would have on the trees in the area. These 4 developers hired tree-care professionals to help them design their developments around the existing trees and provide long term tree-care and protection. Their developments also included planting of new trees and shrubs, transplanting established trees to preserve them and more. You can read a bit more here: Saving trees while developing.
I hope this will be a continuing and growing trend in our country. I always hate to see established trees removed to install roads and parking lots. In my small town there is a Walmart that is supposedly being built on a large piece of land. Now there are many large trees on the land that have been there forever. I’d bet they won’t keep any of those big trees, and instead we’ll have a huge superstore and a grand parking lot to look at. What a nice welcome to a small town nestled in the mountains. I hope that our city officials have required them to do a certain amount fo planting to replace what we’ll lose – but it will never be the same.