Planting trees and ideas

(October 14) - Henry Kock is alive. He came back to us on September 30 with the release of his book Growing Trees From Seed. It’s the sort of book you can take down from the shelf and browse every so often. When you do, it’s almost like bringing Henry into your home for a chat.

If you wanted to know how to look after plants, there was never a better person to ask. He could take the complex bits and pieces of horticulture and make you understand the parts you need to know.

The secrets of trees are secret no longer. We will think of them differently after hearing Kock say: “No other living organism has the ability to stand through blistering heat or violent winter storms without the option of running for cover.”

Trees shade us from the sun, protect us from the wind, prevent soil erosion, and produce our oxygen. They are well worth the time it takes to get to know them better.

I don’t know that many of us will actually go out and find a seed, germinate it in a shallow tray and plant it in the back yard. Some will. Most of us have a family member who has helped a child plant a new tree beside a new home. We have probably all pulled out the tiny maple stems that sprout in the lawn where the helicopters land. Kock helps us understand the how and the why of it all.

His book also challenges some popular beliefs. For one thing, I always thought there was no better friend of the soil than the common earthworm. Apparently not. According to Kock, “they do a huge amount of damage by dragging undecomposed organic material into the soil, where it does not belong.”

Who would have thought it? Birds eat the worms, and pick up seeds from over here and drop them over there, and the forests – when left reasonably alone – prosper and evolve.

Want to know a bit more about native species of vegetation? Kock will start you thinking about it. He says native plant species are those “that were growing in North America prior to colonial times.”

This is just like Guelph. If your grandparents didn’t go to GCVI you’re a newcomer.

The introduction of new people to a city can be very healthy. The introduction of new vegetation to a forest can be quite the opposite. Sometimes the result will be fairly benign, but it’s always a risky business. Henry will tell you why.

Any kind of study of the natural world will show you how deeply connected everything is. It’s not as simple as the fact that trees need birds and birds need trees. There’s an awful lot of other stuff going on, much of it underground and mulch of it above. A healthy environment needs all its component parts to be equally healthy. You can’t put a compact fluorescent bulb in your porch light and chemical pesticides on your lawn and pretend you’re helping.

As I recall Kock, he saw all these connections quite clearly. Even the links between the environment, social justice, peace and economic justice. None will flourish unless they all do. That’s why I found it sad to see that the publishers, Firefly Books, chose to have the book printed in China.

It isn’t that long ago that major colour print jobs like this would be done in some of the specialty printing houses here. There are printers in and around Guelph who could have done it as well, or better.

The economic harm of job loss was felt by Kock as deeply as the environmental harm caused by poorly regulated Chinese industries and the carbon cost of transporting finished books to Canadian stores.

I expect he would have greeted this contradiction with a sardonic smile and a resolve to move forward and make the best of the world as we find it. Nothing is ever changed by wishful thinking. Everything is changed by carefully planting both trees and ideas.

Three of Kock’s colleagues, Paul Aird, John Ambrose and Gerry Waldron are to be thanked for taking an almost complete book and pulling it together so well. It’s a grand testimony to Henry’s life, available for $45 at fine bookstores all over downtown Guelph.