Today is Love a Tree Day!

by Stephanie Sobotka | May 16, 2008 at 07:28 pm | 1477 views | 62 comments

Today is Love a Tree Day! Trees are very important for the environment. Planting a tree can be one of the most efficient ways to remove excess levels of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, therefore helping reduce the effects of global warming!

Always on May 16th

It's Love a Tree Day. So, go out and give a tree a great big hug.

Trees are a good thing. They give us shade, comfort and warmth. They give off oxygen, too. There are many, many benefits provided by trees. So, you have good reason to love a tree or two.

Everyone has a favorite kind of tree. Use today to identify a tree you love, and to pamper it. Give it a trim. Eliminate competitors around it. Feed it a dose of fertilizer. Tree spikes work great. And, give the tree some water, if it is thirsty

Trees are natures air conditioners. In one year the average tree inhales 26 pounds of carbon dioxide, the amount emitted by a car on an 11,000 mile trip. This same tree will in turn exhale enough oxygen to keep a family of 4 breathing for a year. Your trees treat the carbon dioxide they take in. The foliage uses the carbon in the gas to make sugars and starches. The leftover oxygen is released back into the air. We could not sit here today and breathe the clean air we are breathing without our trees. Trees are the greatest collectors of the suns energy. All energy comes from the sun and our trees collect and store more of it than anything else in the world. The benefits of trees can be divided into two general areas. Direct benefits, such as cool from shade or increased property value and indirect benefits. Indirect benefits impact you, the tree owner and the community in real, but less tangible ways. In fact, indirect benefits from trees are more numerous than direct benefits. These benefits include filtration and absorption of air pollutants, reduced storm water run off, storing of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and beneficial impact on the general quality of life. Perhaps the greatest contribution our trees make is an emotional one. People who live in cities brighten up at the site of a tree, the scrawniest saplings challenging the concrete. Silently in our minds they rise as symbols of stability, dignity, adventure, comfort and knowledge.

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Rhonda J Mangus

at 23:29 on May 16th, 2008

Steph02 - I had no idea that today is Love a Tree Day! I love trees! Especially the Weeping Willow and Pines. Thanks for posting!

Beaulieu

at 08:27 on May 17th, 2008

good stuff:

Steph02, I like this story. It's good stuff. I take a sketchbook with me wherever I go because I love trees.

purpleisshh

at 22:20 on May 17th, 2008

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d.andras2

at 04:09 on May 18th, 2008

Budapest, Normafa, Hungary

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Greenmonster

at 04:29 on May 18th, 2008

Greenmonster has contributed a photo to this story.

Greenmonster

at 04:30 on May 18th, 2008

Thank you so much for the kind invitation, Lea!

Osvaldo

at 05:38 on May 18th, 2008

Only way to enhance nature is with more nature

Osvaldo has contributed a photo to this story.

redvalley

at 06:02 on May 18th, 2008

redvalley has contributed a photo to this story.

woupa02

at 06:46 on May 18th, 2008

woupa02 has contributed a photo to this story.

wreckom

at 06:55 on May 18th, 2008

I didn't know about Tree Day either. Thanks a lot for the invitation Lea. :)

tstephens

at 08:43 on May 18th, 2008

This is from when we took a zipline tour through the Rain Forest in the St. Lucia.

tstephens has contributed a photo to this story.

bobrocke

at 08:59 on May 18th, 2008

Winter in Cincinnati at the Krohn Conservatory.

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akio

at 09:06 on May 18th, 2008

akio has contributed a photo to this story.

petite_sphinx

at 09:08 on May 18th, 2008

After living among the thousands of homes in over populated suburba, we dared to move out of our comfort zone, 1.5 hrs from the big city, to a little teeny town called Royal in Alabama.

In "town" most trees, most spot of land is being covered up and ripped up and replaced with either 100 identical houses or a strip mall (both ok things, but I don't want to live in the center of either). So, we ventured out to the country, where the land is large, the birds sing, the sun shines and we found our.......us........my....."me".....and finally, after 10 years in the concrete jungle, I can exhale.

This picture is one of the many shots I was fortunate to capture during our winding drive through the old dirt roads near our home. It's the only tree in this pasture, many cows, goats and horses relax under its leaves for shade when it's hot out and cover during the rain.

This tree shows me that life is still life and that it just might not be all about the job, the buck, the title after my name. But it might be about simpler things, quieter things, lovely things.....the free, yet more and more hard to find things....

-Kalai Oakman

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cynthia yoo

at 16:24 on May 18th, 2008

Great photo and thank you for sharing your story with us!

fcumick

at 16:48 on August 17th, 2008

Marita Cosma

at 09:28 on May 18th, 2008

can you tell it was raining?

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blinkestern

at 09:35 on May 18th, 2008

This is a wall of the old roman fort "Saalburg" in Germany. In roman times, the fort was one part of the limes border, to protect the roman empire against the wild Germanic peoples. For better visibilty, there were no trees at all inside and around the place. It used to be a pure military environment. The Germanic peoples never succeeded to conquer the fort, but nowaday trees did, slowly but with all power of nature.

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Suronyo

at 09:51 on May 18th, 2008

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Andre Adeodato

at 09:51 on May 18th, 2008

Today is Love a Tree Day! Impossible the life without them, love the trees and the nature as a whole and you will always be able to attend shows as this of the picture

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drapes68

at 10:41 on May 18th, 2008

A great topic to promote. Aside from the obvious environmental benefits of ensuring sustainable growth of world forestry - trees offer a very calming spiritual benefit.

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Abigail art_mind

at 10:48 on May 18th, 2008

Trees give me great solice. Her leaves are like tounges.

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she wolf

at 11:00 on May 18th, 2008

This is a watercolor painting by my lovely grandma, Barica. She has always loved animals and trees....very much. She used to be a shepherdess in Europe as a young girl. Grandma is very much a nature lover! Here is a little update about grandma's current status and how this painting came to be!
Grandma Barica two years ago had many strokes and one large heart attack. Her life changed and she needed to be taken from her home. She loved her home more than anything and she was very sad. She ended up with her daughter, My mom and is in very good hands. This was a very dificult time for her not only emotionally but also physically.
I had to stop teaching ..also for health reasons and decided to do what I do best. To help others by teaching. Along side with teaching art at art centers, colleges, and residency programs, I also have been truly blessed by working with people with Disabilities. So I went to work with grandma in my home. SHe eventually started to come out and was expressing herself in new ways. Her paintings and her lovley naive drawings found their way to an art gallery. She had her first art show at the age of 91 in Lansing, Michigan. This has been truly a fantastic uplifting experience for us all.
Especially grandma.
Grandma is now 92.

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cynthia yoo

at 16:27 on May 18th, 2008

That is a lovely story, thank you for sharing it with us!

Liz Castro

at 11:47 on May 18th, 2008

The apple trees are in full bloom in Western Massachusetts. Tent caterpillars which were devastating two years ago are almost nowhere to be seen.

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luvjnx

at 11:54 on May 18th, 2008

We drove cross country from Oregon to Florida, and we stopped at the Redwood National Forest in California. To stand next to a redwood tree is awe-inspiring! Their size is majestic matching their beauty!

luvjnx has contributed a photo to this story.

stephenbuchan

at 12:21 on May 18th, 2008

I spent over an hour on Calton Hill in Edinburgh, waiting for a huge cloud to pass over. When it did, it caught the light of the setting wintery sun, providing an atmospheric glow in this tree silhouette photograph.

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