Tree Huggers

For me, planting soft landings under existing municipal trees is far more advantageous for the local ecosystem, and the blooms can often prevent the threat of removal. Native seed bombs or even just an evening of some light raking in of seeds can vastly improve the ecosystem function of the tree.

A classic.

Unfortunately this story has a sad ending as all of the trees he planted were removed this year. As tempting as guerilla planting sounds it seems like it’s almost always a waste of time. I’ve seen several other projects go the same way.

Usually if you just ask the parks department they will let you plant but it can be frustratingly slow and bureaucratic.

Like everything else, showing up and building relationships with the community is the essential piece. I think if Joey had done that his project may have turned out differently.

Edit: I haven’t watched this video in years and on rewatching I see he does advise that you do this. Maybe he got unlucky. He later moved to Texas so maybe with some advocacy his trees could have been saved. Unfortunately I only heard about the removal after the fact.