The Seed to Tree Partnership! That’s how!
by Colleen Dieter
In the midst of climate change action efforts, almost everyone agrees that planting trees in urban spaces is a good idea. Trees reverse the effects of climate change in the same ways as all plants, by taking carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it in their bodies, in the form of wood, leaves, roots etc.
I have an affinity for trees that is hard to explain, I think it is because they are very common and mostly go unnoticed, but when they are not present is when you notice them the most. I have always been a champion of important things that are taken for granted. In addition to sequestering carbon, trees provide countless other crucial services to humans and animals alike. Here’s a few:
stormwater absorbtion
shade
evaporative cooling of the air around them
windbreaks
food- fruits and nuts
wood and paper products
food and habitat for animals
oxygen
beauty and stress relief
American Persimmon in East Austin provides food for humans and animals
With high demand for trees worldwide, there are not enough seeds and seedlings supply the trees that we need for reforestation programs. Here in Central Texas this problem is exacerbated by development, where communities require builders to plant trees. Builders have the buying power to purchase thousands of trees at a time. In addition, the winter storms of 2021 and 2023 decimated local nurseries, damaging thousands of trees in their inventories, while those same storms destroyed trees in our yards and created even more demand for trees to replace those lost. All of this added up for our local tree planting org, TreeFolks, to not be able to find enough trees and enough tree species diversity for their planting programs.
I’m Colleen Dieter with Central Texas Seed Savers (CTSS) and Red Wheelbarrow Landscape Consulting. I have been a volunteer for TreeFolks (TF) for 20 years. I was even a past president of their board of directors. Several of the other founders of Central Texas Seed Savers have joined the TreeFolks staff in recent years. Early in 2022, Gillian Hodler, one of those CTSS founders and TF staff, and a good friend of mine, asked me if CTSS could collaborate with TF to collect tree seeds for a new nursery that TF is building. Of course! Sounds fun to spend more time with my friend! Sounds like we could solve many problems at one time…
As a landscape designer I am constantly disappointed with the selection of plants available to me. I love our local nurseries but there’s only so much they can do. I don’t blame them either because it is hard to collect seeds for new species, and it is a great financial risk for a grower to try something new, especially slow growing trees. Many native trees might not thrive in nursery conditions, and it’s unclear how much demand there might be for a new species of tree among tree buyers.
Where are the Escarpment Black Cherries for native fall color? I know Texas Madrones, among the most beautiful native trees, are notoriously hard to grow and transplant, so most nurseries won’t carry them. I wish I had Mexican Silktassels to replant non-native privacy hedges that were destroyed in the 2021 “Snowpocalypse”. My tree wish list continues to grow. If TreeFolks could prove that some of these native species are viable in nursery culture, in their non-profit nursery where financial risk is removed, then maybe commercial growers would jump on board to make them more widely available. In addition, from my own observations as a landscaper, there are fewer and fewer nurseries and growers while the Central Texas region’s population is growing.
Austin is experiencing wildly rapid development now, and that puts pressure on native trees. Land clearing, even with the legal and practical protection of larger trees like Live Oaks, destroys smaller ecologically important trees like Escarpment Black Cherry, Texas Madrones and Mexican Silktassles. As habitat gets changed or destroyed these plants become increasingly rare. Deer pressure and overgrazing from livestock also limits the natural regeneration of native species because the animals eat the saplings.
Gillian and I decided to start by adding a seed saving portion to the tree identification walks that we were already leading for TreeFolks. We kicked off our first one May 21, 2022. If we could teach people to ID the trees and save seeds from them, then they could interact with the trees on an even more meaningful level than just learning their names.
In about 1 year, Gillian and I organized a working group of incredibly dedicated volunteers. Some of them came to our group because they attended the first tree ID walk with the new seed saving content. Others attended CTSS seed swap events and were particularly passionate about native tree seeds. Some of them were already TF volunteers looking for another way to contribute. All of them desired to be part of an activist community of rare plant connoisseurs. Our meetings were full of fantastic distractions from business- stories about plants we had saved from doom, good seed collection spots and propagation tips and techniques.
In Summer of 2023 we got great news- another CTSS founder, Vit Kaspar, was hired as the manager of the nursery at TF and would be building the nursery from the ground up. The TreeFolks Executive Director and Board of Directors continue forward with their plans to expand the nursery too. More connectivity made our partnership even stronger. A year later, the seed collection is growing and the nursery is coming together! See the video below.
You can learn more about how to collect seeds for the Seed to Tree Partnership here.