I’d like to give a very warm welcome and introduce a new contributor to Cohabitaire, our very own tree expert – Chris Broers! I hope you enjoy hearing from Chris from time to time as he gives us an insight into the world of our beautiful tall friends…. hello, Chris!

Canary Island Date Palm

Life from a tree’s perspective?

All trees want to survive and live just like us!!!

Energy is diverted selectively into 4 areas required for tree life; reproduction, growth, maintenance and defence.  All trees have a life story you just have to be open to it and read it.

Jacaranda

As the owner / operater of a private Sydney based tree service company, I look at trees all day…. when I’m driving, when I’m walking in centennial park or along Randwick Streets, at backyard BBQ’s, in my sleep, during the day in those empty moments when my blank expression is a hidden tree thought.  Why do I ponder our woody friends so much? Because I see trees everywhere! It’s only a matter of looking, appreciating, empathizing and learning from our Cohabiting friends.

Fig tree

Trees are part of my life and yours too. They produce clean air, attract birds, give shade, screen noise, filter pollution, produce flowers and smells, and provide micro-ecosystems.  Trees are connected to their environment converting sunlight energy from their leaf factory network into a living interacting bio-structure. Urban trees are part of where we live, be it suburban or inner city, trees are complete and can harmonize our lives.

Port Jackson Fig tree

Trees are restricted to location they grow and evolve in the one spot. They cannot ask for more sun or move from an over-polluted street, they are a living structure which grows and develops in the one geographical location.

Tree life consciousness is continuous, persisting in winter, summer autumn and spring year after year, decade to decade, century to century.  Rain, hail, sun or snow, trees grow, maintain, defend, reproduce and mature in the one spot.  There are no periods of sleep or rest there are no holidays or recreation.

Camphor Laurel tree

Liquid Amber

While they do not possess our sensory organs – touch, feel pain, see, taste or hear – they do continually interact and respond to their environment, and persist because of their marvellous pre-instructed, coded DNA.

Trees are a bio structure that interacts with the environment, following their DNA path set by their parents and grand parents and so on (with a pinch of morphological variation between generations).  Trees will continually interact with their environment with branches and leaves forming in new spatial positions from year to year, until they die.

Brachychiton

Coral tree

About Chris Broers

Chris Broers is a certified Arborist & Arboricultural Consultant, the Director of Sydney Palms & Access Stump Grinding with a Diploma of Applied Science in Nature Conservation and Horticulture from the University of QLD.