Festival 37 — Survivor Trees edition

Neither fire, nor cyclones, nor hurricanes, nor atomic bombs stay the Festival of the Trees from its appointed editions, and TGAW’s special issue on survivor trees is no exception. Highlights include a generous selection of links on hibaku trees; tips from an arborist on how to make trees hurricane-resistant; a photo gallery of “drive-thru” trees; and an alarming post about the threat posed to trees by airborne sharks. Go visit!

Call for submissions: Festival 37, “Survivor Trees”

For its 3rd anniversary, the Festival travels to TGAW for a special themed edition focusing on survivor trees. Here’s how our host, Vicky, describes it:

In 1945, the atomic bomb destroyed a vast majority of the buildings and structures in Hiroshima. Looking at photographs of the damage, one Manhattan Project scientist told the Washington Post the land “will be barren of life and nothing will grow for 75 years.” But the next spring, Chinese Parasol trees only 1300 meters from the hypocenter budded.

And they weren’t alone — numerous species of trees survived. Seeing the trees rebound brought hope to the citizens of Hiroshima and they realized that they too had the ability to rebuild and recover.

In the Bijlmermeer Neighborhood of Amsterdam stands a tree called “The Tree That Saw It All”. In 1992, a Boeing 747 crashed in that neighborhood, killing 43 people and destroying numerous apartments. A tree near the edge of the impact survived and become the impromptu center of mourning. “Flowers, pictures, stuffed animals and poems were placed beneath it.” The tree was so important to the community that today, a memorial for the crash victims (Bijlmer Memorial) surrounds that same tree.

In 1995, when a car bomb tore through the Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people, a nearby American Elm tree survived. Like Hiroshima, it too became a symbol of hope and resilience. It is now known as the “Survivor Tree” and like the “The Tree That Saw It All”, it is the focal point of the Oklahoma City Memorial. Drawing inspiration from the tree, the plaque beneath it reads, “The spirit of this city and this nation will not be defeated; our deeply rooted faith sustains us.”

For July’s Festival of the Trees, I would love to receive submissions regarding “survivor trees”: trees that have survived great tragedies or remarkably harsh environments. Trees that have rebounded and found a way to thrive. Trees that have brought hope or comfort. Trees that inspire us in times of need.

Email your links to: vicky (at) tgaw (dot) com by June 28 for inclusion in the July 1 festival. As always, please include “Festival of the Trees” in the subject line of your email.

Festival #36 leafs out

Our 36th edition comes to you from the forests of Missouri this month. Festival of the Trees co-founder Pablo at Roundrock Journal hosts an orderly and elegant convocation, making room for posts about Bounty from Trees, Beauty from Trees, Lessons from Trees, Renewal from Trees, and tree felling — 37 great links in all. So set aside a few hours this week and check it out.

Happy Centenary, I and the Bird!

We congratulate I and the Bird, the blog carnival for birds and birdwatching, on achieving its milestone 100th post. It’s a testament to the organization and stick-to-it-iveness of its founder and chief organizer, Mike Bergin, as well as to the vitality of bird blogging in general. I and the Bird is now the longest running nature blog carnival on the web, and was our inspiration when we founded Festival of the Trees. We urge all FOTT contributors to consider becoming IATB contributors too, if you aren’t already, starting with the 101st edition. And I hope you’re all still around when FOTT reaches that milestone, too!

Call for submissions: Festival 36

Next month the festival will return to Roundrock Journal for the first time since August 2006. That’s right, one the two co-conspirators behind the FOTT will be coming down from the trees long enough to assemble and post an edition of this nearly three-year-old blog carnival, so don’t miss out — be sure to blog about trees this month so you can be included in this historic edition.

Email your links to editor [at] roundrockjournal [dot] com, with “Festival of the Trees” in the subject line, or submit via the online submission form. The deadline for this edition is May 29. We appreciate as always any assistance in finding links to blog posts or photosets whose authors might be unaware of the Festival.

By the way, if you’d like to keep track of deadlines and locations for all active nature blog carnivals, the easiest way to do that is by bookmarking or subscribing to the blog of the Nature Blog Network, which runs weekly updates on the topic.

Festival 35 is in full bloom

It’s May Day — or Beltane, if you prefer. We’re celebrating with a special Blossoming Trees edition of the Festival of the Trees. “Beltane was originally a fertility festival,” our hostess Peg points out, “and what better inspiration for love and romance than a trees festooned in delicate, fragrant blossoms?”

Beltane Sunset (Edinburgh fire festival, 2007) by Patrick2978 on Flickr - CC BY-NC license

Call for Submissions – Festival 35

May Day is one of just two holidays I can think of on the Western European calendar in which dead trees play a central role. But we’ll be celebrating here not with a May Pole but with flowering maples, cherries, oaks, elms — you name it. The host of the May 1 edition of the Festival, Peg at Orchards Forever, requests a special focus on trees in bloom for this edition, especially from bloggers in the northern hemisphere where spring will be well underway. Email your links to amberapple [at] msn [dot] com, or submit via the online submission form, on or before April 27.

If emailing, as always, put “Festival of the Trees” in the subject line, and please feel free to send in links to any appropriate blog posts, photosets, or other sites you run across in the course of your web wanderings. We do anticipate, however, that fewer folks will remain indoors this month as warmer spring weather spreads northward. Just remember to bring a digital camera and/or pocket notebook with you on your expeditions afield so you can share whatever you find — especially those blooming trees!

Festival #34 is up

Something marvelous is happening at The Marvelous in Nature. Seabrooke lives up to her reputation as a nature blogger who goes the extra mile in researching her posts, demonstrating in the process that facts are anything but dry if presented with a sense of wonder — and accompanied by well-chosen illustrations. Or as she puts it,

I started this blog with the intention of highlighting the marvelous in nature, all those amazing things that we so often just walk right by without noticing. There are amazing things about every single species that many of us don’t know. So for this issue of Festival of the Trees, I thought I would try to find an interesting fact relating to each of the posts. And then for even more interesting facts (and, in some cases, fiction), follow the links to learn more!

Check it out.

Call for Submissions – Festival #34

On April 1 the FOTT will travel to the Ontario-based blog The Marvelous in Nature. This is one edition you won’t want to miss! (Not that you should want to miss any of our fine editions, of course.) Though it’s only been around for a little over a year, The Marvelous in Nature has already established itself as one of the best-written and most in-depth natural history blogs, blending art and science in roughly equal proportions. Check out the interview with its author, Seabrooke Leckie, on the Nature Blog Network.

Email links to sanderling [at] symbiotic [dot] ca with “Festival of the Trees” in the subject line — or, as always, use the online submission form. The deadline for inclusion is March 30.

Festival #33 is up

Every Festival of the Trees I learn a few new things, and this edition — #33, at local ecologist — is no exception. I learned about aster trees, tree silos, how to get trees to sprout in the Sudanese desert, what happens when a drought hits a swamp, and the ins and outs of sleeping in a treeboat, among other things. Georgia has put together a wonderfully diverse and ecologically informed festival. Go visit!

Photo by camila tulcan, licenced under a Creative Commons license.