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Plants Protected
by Cynthia B. Lauer
January 2026
Living Green Barrie is all about trees. So is this new blog. I’ll be writing about the best native trees for birds, pollinators, fall colour, sun, shade, dry soil, and moist soil. Watch for stories on tree identification, fruit trees, nut trees, hardy trees, Carolinian trees, small trees, giant trees, showy trees, and threats to trees. I will introduce readers to food forests, forest therapy, mini forests, and details on tree species from apples to willows.
Let’s begin with the magic of trees. Trees are all around us but they’re entirely overlooked. They are the literal background to our daily life. They are just there doing their thing. And they do a great deal. They keep us breathing, fed, shaded, wind protected, erosion protected, flood protected, climate controlled, temperature regulated, soil conserved, water conserved, and carbon stored. They do all that for us and demand nothing in return. Even though they are essential for life on the planet, trees are easy to take for granted.
In an interview, novelist Richard Powers, author of the best-seller, The Overstory, says that “the ability to look at a tree and see an animate, active agent is pretty ubiquitous in childhood, and we get that drummed out of us along the way by various means.”
When did you first look at a tree? I mean really look at its form, its height, its foliage, its bark? Have you ever touched a gnarly tree trunk or stuck your nose in a linden blossom?
When did you stop taking trees for granted?
My love of plants didn’t come from flower beds but from a mature elm tree on the boulevard in front of my childhood home. Our street was a single block long and was, like many streets in central Toronto, lined with American elm trees, Ulmus americana. In the 1960s, all but two of the thirty or so trees succumbed to Dutch Elm disease. The tree in front of our house was one of the rare survivors. I took a photograph of it when I was about age 10. Standing at the base of the stately tree aiming my camera directly upward, I produced a photograph that stunned me then and for many years after. The massive trunk extends 60 feet to the sky then spans out in a canopy backlit by harsh sunlight sliced into shards by the tree’s towering branches.
Gazing up at the elm from this perspective made an indelible impression on me. It was as though I entered into a relationship with the tree simply by opening my childish eyes to it.
I love everything about gardening—native plants, flowering shrubs, herbs, ferns, conifers, garden design, community gardens, rain gardens, sensory gardens, you name it. I even enjoy weeding. Now that I’m retired, I get to write about gardening all the time. It’s a commitment to lifelong learning.
But I have a particular love of trees. When I walk among them, I feel a sense of awe. When I enter a wooded area, my thinking mind stops as I become immersed in the full sensory experience. Some people call this forest bathing.
My tiny backyard woodland has quite a few original trees—aspens (Populus tremuloides), birches (Betula papyrifera), maples (Acer spp.), red pine (Pinus resinosa), blue spruce (Picea pungens), and a mountain ash (Sorbus aucuparia). To these, I added dwarf hackberry (Celtis tenuifolia), blackgum (Nyssa sylvatica), Ohio buckeye (Aesculus glabra), pawpaw (Asimina triloba), white pine (Pinus strobus), white spruce (Picea glauca), musclewood (Carpinus caroliniana), redbud (Cercis canadensis), serviceberry (Amelanchier arborea), and a bunch of pagoda dogwoods (Cornus alternifolia). Planted in the years my grandchildren were born, I will watch them grow up together.
Trees captivate me. I trace my passion for them back to the American elm of my childhood.
Do you have a relationship with a special tree?
A Living Green Barrie volunteer since 2025, Cynthia Lauer is a member of Simcoe County Master Gardeners and a regular contributor to The Gardener magazine. She loves tending her tiny woodland in Innisfil.