Trees

The following is excerpted, with permission, from Margins of a Greater Wildness: Nature Essays on Stanley Creek and Beyond, a collection of essays by Richard Rankin on local topics from the Stanley Creek community in eastern Gaston County, where the Rankin family has lived for many generations. Although Ralph and Estelle Rankin lived and worked […]

During a recent trip to the beach, I realized a number of plants native to the Coastal Plain have found a home in the Piedmont. Yaupon holly, beautyberry, wax myrtle and sweetbay magnolia have become staples in our gardens. Pitcher plants and longleaf pines occur in the natural landscapes of the Uwharries. A botanist friend […]

Walk through the forest at Redlair Preserve, an approximately 750-acre property preserved in Gaston County, and you will see in the understory something that look like a design by Dr. Seuss: A medium-sized tree sporting massive flowers and tropical-looking leaves that can grow 30 inches long and a foot wide. The trees are bigleaf magnolia […]

Although the city arborist says Charlotte’s trees are healthy enough, for now, that no more aerial spraying to kill cankerworms is planned for next spring, the city’s infestation with the leaf-munching caterpillars remains high. Learn More Click here to see all of City Arborist Don McSween’s presentation. At a City Council meeting Monday, City Arborist […]

Charlotte City Council members will consider strategies for lobbying against a state bill expected to be introduced that city officials fear would all but gut the city’s tree protection ordinance. The proposed bill won approval on April 30 from an Agriculture and Forestry Awareness Study Commission, a group of legislative and gubernatorial appointees. Officials with […]

The UNC Charlotte Urban Institute, in partnership with the UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture, has launched KEEPING WATCH, a three-year initiative designed to bring a higher profile to, and engage the public in, issues about the natural environment. The initiative will foster collaboration across various interest groups and disciplines. An exhibit opened Friday, […]

Is it possible “to see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wildflower” as poet William Blake suggested? According to biologist David George Haskell, this “search for the universal within the infinitesimally small” runs through many cultures. Tibetan monks create mandalas, paintings of sand that represent the entire universe within […]

The City of Charlotte and other local organizations are offering neighborhoods opportunities to improve neighborhood tree canopies and to boost traditional neighborhood newsletters by using digital tools such as Twitter, texting and other web-based formats. Learn new digital skills at neighborhood communications workshop Charlotte community leaders and homeowners associations wanting to send neighborhood updates to […]

This wet summer has brought out a number of wildflowers we rarely see, or at least not in great numbers. Recently, I saw one of my favorites blooming en masse in Montgomery County – the yellow-fringed orchid. This beautiful wildflower blooms from late June to early September, so they were just past peak but I […]

On a blustery March day last year, Syreeta Kitchen-Dukes and her neighbors in the Applegate Community of east Charlotte gathered in rainy front yards to meet the neighborhood’s newest residents: 177 young trees. See more tree photos at article’s end. The would-be forest arrived with a crew from TreesCharlotte, a public/private collaborative whose goal is […]