2010 Planting objectives

Part of my new year resolutions was to define how I expect to practice this tree planting hobby in the coming year.


1 - plant, plant, and plant

Time constraints came to mind first : I wish to limit my participation to what my motorcycle can carry comfortably at any time, being 4 x 2L bottles of water. This limits my actions to only watering 4 trees regularly at any time, not too far from my home. So, after replanting the missing T3 and T4, which are watered by someone else, I can still plant and take care of another 2 trees.

Basically, I can plant more trees, provided they are in any location that will not require me to look after it on a regular basis afterwards. That means I can also plant in any other location that gets watered either by municipal/corporate gardeners, or by good souls who wish to join this project.


2 - spot suitable planting locations

Another corollary is that I can basically plant anything, anywhere, during the monsoon, when the sky itself will look after these fragile baby trees. So one of my objectives now is to spot and map suitable planting spots, that will be planted during the raining season. I already saw many more suitable spots while cruising in Bangkok's streets ; some of these locations could really do with more trees cleaning the air and providing shade. All would benefit from the reassuring presence of 'greenery' around us.


3 - recruit

I'm not good at this, but I just love company ! :)

Anybody is welcome who wishes to help, if only a little bit. Just indicating me accurately a suitable planting spot would help. Coming along for a planting session is fun ! Planting, watering and watching your own tree grow is just a great feeling.


4 - think big

I've been thinking over Berlin's plant adoption scheme (see Andy's comments), and have also found evidence of sponsoring parks/trees planting in both Laos and Singapore. Conversations with friends with interest in these questions led me to probe a few personalities about developping a large tree planting 'sponsoring project'. The first inputs have been quite positive.

I do not wish to develop this idea further here at the moment, since there is still so much to be defined yet.