Tony Santoro's Guide to Illegal Tree-Planting
Tony Santoro's Guide to Illegal Tree-Planting
Counteract the Bleakness of the Modern Urban Environment of rampant homelessness and over-priced housing by propagating and planting trees in neglected urban spaces. Tony Santoro shows you how with help from the Department of Unauthorized Forestry.
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.
Awesome resource :) I've been looking into soft landings too! Nearby me, there's a corp owned commercial lot that's been vacant for years, bare-bones maintenance. The street trees out front are Callery pear, which I can't do anything about, but the ground under them isn't tended.
There's also two very sad trees in the middle of the parking lot and one empty tree well (which recently inspired me to rewatch this video lol).
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 itâs almost always a waste of time. Iâve 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 havenât 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.
Your point at the end is crucial. I heard a local story about a bunch of people rolling up in a neighborhood, planting trees, never to be seen or heard from again :( Kinda gross and presumptive.