Also see Environment and Gardening.
Remember National Arbor Day the last Sunday in April.

Quotes
- Even if I knew the world were going to end tomorrow, I would go out and plant a tree today. (several people have been credited with this but I think Martin Luther originated the thought)
- For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver. (Martin Luther)
- God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools. (John Muir)
- Great oaks from little acorns grow.
- He that plants trees loves others besides himself.
- Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees. (Revelation 7:3)
- I have come to terms with the future. From this day onward I will walk easy on the earth. Plant trees. Kill no living things. Live in harmony with all creatures. I will restore the earth where I am. Use no more of its resources than I need. And listen, listen to what it is telling me. (M.J. Slim Hooey)
- I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines. (Henry David Thoreau)
- I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do. (Willa Cather)
- In some mysterious way woods have never seemed to me to be static things. In physical terms, I move through them; yet in metaphysical ones, they seem to move through me. (John Fowles)
- Lumberjacks are part of a splinter group.
- The lumberjack who couldn't hack it was given the axe.
- Many people, other than the authors, contribute to the making of a book, from the first person who had the bright idea of alphabetic writing through the inventor of movable type to the lumberjacks who felled the trees that were pulped for its printing. It is not customary to acknowledge the trees themselves, though their commitment is total. (Forsyth and Rada)
- Old foresters never die, they just pine away.
- Only God can make a tree.
- Other holidays repose on the past. Arbor Day proposes the future. (J. Sterling Morton)
- Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them. (Bill Vaughan)
- Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds! (Henry David Thoreau)
- There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more. (Lord Byron)
- They kill good trees to put out bad newspapers. (James G. Watt)
- Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness. (Kahlil Gibran)
- The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. (Nelson Henderson)
- You can live for years next door to a big pine tree, honored to have so venerable a neighbor, even when it sheds needles all over your flowers or wakes you, dropping big cones onto your deck at still of night. (Denise Levertov)
The Value of a Tree
It is difficult to place a monetary value on the many vital services that trees provide. However, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection calculates that a single tree that lives for fifty years will contribute service worth nearly $200,000 (in 1994 dollars) to the community during its lifetime. This includes providing oxygen ($31,250), recycling water and regulating humidity ($37,000), controlling air pollution ($62,500), producing protein ($2,500), providing shelter for wildlife ($31,250), and controlling land erosion and fertilizing the soil ($31,250). (from Sacred Trees)
The Secrets of a Tree
Because they are primeval, because they outlive us, because they are fixed, trees seem to emanate a sense of permanence. And though rooted in earth, they seem to touch the sky. For these reasons it is natural to feel we might learn wisdom from them, to haunt about them with the idea that if we could only read their silent riddle rightly we should learn some secret vital to our own lives; or even, more specifically, some secret vital to our real, our lasting and spiritual existence. (Kim Taplin)
Page Idea
Tree in Four Seasons--this would work just as well with groups of trees or shrubs.
What Do We Plant?
(Henry Abbey)
What do we plant when we plant the tree?
We plant the ship, which will cross the sea.
We plant the mast to carry the sails;
We plant the planks to withstand the gales--
The keel, the keelson, the beam, the knee;
We plant the ship when we plant the tree.
What do we plant when we plant the tree?
We plant the houses for you and me.
We plant the rafters, the shingles, the floors,
We plant the studding, the lath, the doors,
The beams and siding, all parts that be;
We plant the house when we plant the tree.
What do we plant when we plant the tree?
A thousand things that we daily see;
We plant the spire that out-towers the crag,
We plant the staff for our country's flag,
We plant the shade, from the hot sun free;
We plant all these when we plant the tree.
Tree House
(James Stevenson)
There's a tree house
Up in the apple tree,
A platform of planks
Jammed between the branches.
To get there,
Climb a stairway of sticks
Nailed to the trunk
Like a busted xylophone,
Mountaineers and pirates
Ascend and descend,
Busy as inchworms,
How many are up there now?
It's anybody's guess;
Green leaves keep it secret.
Could be no one, could be three.
Could be ten
With peanut butter
sandwiches
And an excellent
view of France.
Song of the Open Road
(Ogden Nash)
I think that I shall never see
billboard as lovely as a tree.
Perhaps unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.
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An Act of Faith
(S.S. Hager)
Today I saw an act of faith
A man was on his knees,
Not in a church but by a fence--
Planting apple trees.
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Be different to Trees
(Mary Carolyn Davies)
The talking oak
To the ancients spoke
But any trees
Will talk to me.
What truths I know
I garnered so.
But those who want to talk and tell,
And those who will not listeners be.
Will never hear a syllable
From out the lips of any tree.
Arbor Day
The seeds we plant today
With sun and rain and rest
Will grow to be the shade
That all the land wears best.
Arbor Day
(Betty Foust Smith)
"Tree Planting Day" they called it
In Nebraska long ago.
Now we call it Arbor Day, and
Oh, I love it so!
I love to plant a growing thing--
A tree, a shrub, a vine--
And know it will for years and years
Keep growing there, a sign
To children who come after me
That someone thought of them,
And left behind a living friend
More precious than a gem.
Arbor Day
I cannot dig a great big hole
And set a tree into it,
But I can make a little hole
And I am going to do it.
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Then in the little hole I'll drop
This acorn brown and shiny,
And that way I can plant a tree
Although I am so tiny.
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Trees
(Joyce Kilmer)
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Every Time I Climb a Tree
(David McCord)
Every time I climb a tree
Every time I climb a tree
Every time I climb a tree
I scrape a leg
Or skin a knee
And every time I climb a tree
I find some ants
Or dodge a bee
And get the ants
All over me.
And every time I climb a tree
Where have you been?
They say to me
But don't they know that I am free
Every time I climb a tree?
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I like it best
To spot a nest
That has an egg
Or maybe three.
And then I skin
The other leg
But every time I climb a tree
I see a lot of things to see
Swallows roof tops and TV
And all the fields and farms there be
Every time I climb a tree
Though climbing may be good for ants
It isn't awfully good for pants
But still it's pretty good for me
Every time I climb a tree
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from Birch Trees
(Robert Frost)
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
Lovely Lilacs
(Louise Driscoll)
My lilac trees are old and tall;
I cannot reach their bloom at all.
They send their perfume over trees
And roof and streets, to find the bees.
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Talking Trees
(Mary Carolyn Davies)
The talking oak
To the ancient spoke.
But any tree
Will talk to me.
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Looking Up at Leaves
(Barbara Howes)
No one need feel alone looking up at leaves.
There are such depths to them, withdrawal, welcome,
A fragile tumult on the way to sky.
This great trunk holds apart two hemispheres
We lie between . . . Like water lilies
Leaves fall, rise, waver, echoing
On their blue pool, whispering under the sun;
While in this shade, under our hands the brown
Tough roots seek down, lily roots searching
Down through their pool of earth to an equal depth.
Constant as water lilies we lie still,
Our breathing like the lapping of pond water,
Balanced between reflection and reflection.
The Heart of the Tree
(Henry Cuyler Bunner)
What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants the friend of sun and sky;
He plants the flag of breezes free;
The shaft of beauty, towering high;
He plants a home to heaven anigh
For song and mother-croon of bird
In hushed and happy twilight heard--
The treble of heaven's harmony
These things he plants who plants a tree.
Trees
(Sara Coleridge)
The Oak is called the King of Trees
The Aspen quivers in the breeze,
The Poplar grows up straight and tall,
The Pear Tree spreads along the wall,
The Sycamore gives pleasant shade,
The Willow droops in watery glade,
The Fir Tree useful timber gives,
The Beech amid the forest lives.
Druid Ceremony for Planting a Tree
In earth and water will you grow. In the air will your leaves speak as you reach towards the fire of the sun. We respect and honor and admire you, O tree, and all trees, for you represent both Peace and Power--though you are mighty you hurt no creature. Though you sustain us with your breath, you will give up your life to house and warm and teach us. We give thanks for your blessing upon our lives and upon our lands. May you fare well in this chosen place.
Woodman, Spare That Tree!
(General George Pope Morris)
Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I'll protect it now.
'T was my forefather's hand
That placed it near his cot;
There, woodman, let it stand,
Thy axe shall harm it not.
That old familiar tree,
Whose glory and renown
Are spread o'er land and sea--
And wouldst thou hew it down?
Woodman, forbear thy stroke!
Cut not its earth-bound ties;
Oh, spare that aged oak
Now towering to the skies!
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When but an idle boy,
I sought its grateful shade;
In all their gushing joy
Here, too, my sisters played.
My mother kissed me here;
My father pressed my hand--
Forgive this foolish tear,
But let that old oak stand.
My heart-strings round thee cling,
Close as thy bark, old friend!
Here shall the wild-bird sing,
And still thy branches bend.
Old tree! the storm still brave!
And, woodman, leave the spot;
While I've a hand to save,
Thy axe shall harm it not.
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Official State Trees
- American Elm - MA, ND
- American Holly - DE
- Bald Cypress - LA
- Buckeye - OH
- California Redwood - CA
- Candlenut - HI
- Cottonwood - KS, NE, WY
- Dogwood - MO, VA, NJ (Memorial Tree)
- Douglas Fir - OR
- Giant Sequoia - CA
- Hemlock: Hemlock - PA; Western Hemlock - WA;
- Oak: Oak - IA; Live Oak - GA; Northern Red Oak - NJ; Scarlet Oak - Washington, DC
- Pecan - TX
- Pine: Pine - AR; Red Norway Pine - MN; Long Leaf Pine - AL, NC; Ponderosa Pine - MT; Eastern White Pine - ME, MI; White Pine - ID; Pinon Pine - NM, NV
- Red Maple - RI
- Redbud - OK
- Sabal Palmetto (Cabbage Palm) - FL, SC
- Southern Magnolia - MS
- Spruce: Black Hills Spruce - SD; Blue Spruce - CO, UT; Sitka Spruce - AK
- Sugar Maple NY, VT, WI, WV
- Tulip Tree (yellow poplar) - KY, IN, TN
- White Birch - NH
- White Oak - CT, IL, MD
- Yellow Palo Verde - AZ
- Yellowwood Tree - TN (bicentennial tree)
Tree ABC's
(Compiled by Bonnie Jasperson)
A - aspen, ash, apple, autumn, American holly, American elm, acorn, arboretum, ancest-tree, ax, alder, avocado, Arbor Day, apricot, almond, autumn olive
B - birch, bonsai, box elder, bird's eye maple, banana, buckeye, beech, bark, blue spruce, bump on a log, buck saw, board feet, broad leaf, bamboo, bristlecone pine, balsam, black walnut, butternut, bald cypress, burr oak
C - cedar, changing colors, cottonwood, Chinese elm, cypress, Christmas tree, climbing, chain saw, crab apple, conifer, copse, coconut, cherry, chestnut, catalpa, chinkapin oak, Colorado blue spruce, California redwood
D - dogwood, Douglas Fir, date palm, dead wood, dwarf
E - evergreen, elm, eucalyptus, English walnut, ebony, eastern red cedar, eastern white pine
F - fir, fall, falling leaves, forest, forestry, fruit trees, field maple, fraser fir
G - giant sequoia, grove, growth rings, ginkgo, gum, golden raintree, green ash
H - hawthorne, hemlock, hedge apples, hug a tree, hardwoods, hackberry, hazelnut, hickory, holly
I - Ilex (holly family), Ironwood
J - juniper, jungle, joshua, jack pine
K - kapok, knock on wood, Kentucky coffee-tree, kousa dogwood, kenai paper birch
L - leaves, lemon, lumber, lumberjack, log, limb, lodgepole pine, larch, linden, locust, loblolly pine, lombardy poplar, live oak, long leaf pine
M - maple, magnolia, mimosa, mountain ash, mountain laurel, mahogany, mulberry, myrtle
N - nuts, norway spruce, nordmann fir, nootka cypress, northern pin oak, northern red oak
O - oak, olive, orchard, orange, osage orange, Oregon ash, Ohio buckeye
P - pine, pear, piles of leaves, pine tar, pine cones, poplar, pecan, ponderosa pine, palmetto, pinyon pine, pine needles, palm, pawpaw, prune, peach, persimmon, plum, pin oak, pinon pine
Q - quaking aspen
R - raking leaves, redwood, roots, red maple, red bud, red oakrope swings, russian olive, rhododendron, rain forest, river birch
S - sycamore, Smokey the Bear, sap, sugar maple, spruce, sapling, sawdust, saw mill, stump, soft woods, sweet gum balls, splinter, swing an ax, smoke tree, seeds, sitka spruce, sumac, scotch pine, silver maple, sweetgum, scarlet oak
T - teak, tiger maple, timber, tulip tree, tree line, timber, tree hugger, tree-rific, tree-mendous, trunk, twigs
U - Ulmus (species name for elm trees), urban forestry, umbrella-pine
V - Verbenaceae (teak family), vine maple
W - walnut, willow, woods, white birch, white oak, wildlife habitat, wooden it be lovely?, western hemlock, weeping willow
X - xylem cells (what wood consists of)
Y - yellowwood, yew, yellow birch, yellow cedar (a type of cypress), yoshino flowering cherry, yellow palo verde, yellow poplar
Z - zelkova (a species of elm), zanthoxylum (family for prickly-ash trees)
Songs about Bushes
- Beating Around the Bush - Adam Brand (2006)
- Bird in the Bush, The - Frankie Armstrong (1965)
- Blackberry Bush, The - Fiona Davidson (2003)
- Bushes - Markus Nikolai (2001)
- Bushes and Briars - John Rutter (1983)
- Don't Beat Around the Bush - Salsoul Orchestra (1976)
- Every Bush and Tree - John McCutcheon (1977)
- Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush - Charlie Foxx (1963)
- Lilac Bush, The - Wylie and the Wild West (2002)
- Stop Beatin' Round the Mulberry Bush - Bill Haley (1952)
Songs about Trees
- Acorns and Orioles - Guided By Voices (1997)
- Ain't Nothin' Shakin' But the Leaves on the Trees - Billy Craddock(1972)
- Apple Tree - Johnny Rivers (1970)
- Beneath the Willow - Bashful Brother Oswald (1962)
- Bristlecone Pine - Michael Johnson (1991)
- Bury Me Beneath the Willow - Jimmie Davis (1968)
- Carolina in the Pines - Michael Martin Murphey (1975)
- Carolina Pines - Kate Wolf (1985)
- Cedar Grove - Bill Clifton (1958)
- Cinco Robles (The Five Oaks) - Russell Arms (1957)
- Cottonwood - Ken Curtis (1956)
- Cottonwood Road - Steve Coffey (2004)
- Cry in the Forest - Dan Fogelberg (1996)
- Deep Forest - Neal Schon (1995)
- Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree With Anyone Else But Me - Miller (1942)
- Down in the Old Cherry Orchard - Kenneth Threadgill (1981)
- Dutch Elm - Sunken Foal (2008)
- Ebony Forest - Aarion Nesbit (2003)
- Elm Grove - Coolhunter (2006)
- Elm Tree - Paper Owls (2007)
- Emerald Forest - Drew Bennett (2005)
- Enchanted Forest - Raymond Scott Orchestra (1946)
- Every Bush and Tree - John McCutcheon (1977)
- Fallen Trees Waltz - The Turner Brothers (1950)
- George and the North Woods - Dave Dudley (1969)
- Georgia Pines - Tony Joe White (1967)
- Georgia Piney Woods - The Osborne Brothers (1971)
- Girl Sittin' Up in a Tree - Burl Ives (1965)
- Hanging Tree, The - Marty Robbins (1959)
- Home From the Forest - Ronnie Hawkins (1968)
- I Can't Grow Peaches on a Cherry Tree - Just Us (1966)
- I Talk to the Trees - Arthur Lyman (1961)
- I Walked Through a Forest - The Wanderers (1959)
- In the Pines - The Blue Grass Boys (1952)
- It's Only a Tree - Okefenokee Joe (2008)
- Kissing Tree, The - Billy Grammer (1959)
- Leave Weeping to the Willow Tree - Bonnie Guitar (1964)
- Legend of the Dogwood Tree, The - Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper (1950)
- Lemon Tree - Trini Lopez (1965)
- Linden Trees - The Harmonicats (1963)
- Little Acorn - Dorsey Burnette (1964)
- Little Poplar Log-House on the Hill - Bill Clifton (1975)
- Lost in the Lonesome Pines - Jim Lauderdale (2002)
- Love Don't Grow on Trees - Otis Williams and His Charms (1965)
- Maple on the Hill, The - Norman Blake (2005)
- Mountain Laurel - The Bailey Brothers (1975)
- Oak and the Laurel, The - Tom Rozum and Laurie Lewis (1995)
- Old Elm Tree, The - Eugene Jemison (1954)
- Old Tree - Ricky Simpkins (2006)
- Orange Tree - Hayley Taylor (2006)
- Orange Tree in Bloom - Guadalupe Raventos (1999)
- Orange Trees and Dusty Roads - Winter Wilson (2005)
- Pine Trees Whisper, The - Mac and Bob (1941)
- Porpoises, Pelicans and Palm Trees - Uncle Moondog (2005)
- Rain Forest Dreams - Bernie Krause (1998)
- Rugs of Woods and Flowers - The Turtles (1967)
- Running Through the Forest - Larry Verne (1964)
- Settin' the Woods on Fire - Hank Williams (1952)
- Shadow of the Pines - Cary Fridley (2006)
- So Tall a Tree - The Three Suns (1950)
- Sparrow in the Treetop - The Les Baxter Orchestra (1951)
- Tall Grows the Sycamore - Ed Townsend (1957)
- Tall, Tall Trees - Alan Jackson (1995)
- Tall Timber - The String Wizards (1991)
- Tall Trees in Georgia - Buffy Sainte Marie (1971)
- Taller Than Trees - The Statesmen Quartet (1955)
- Tallest Tree, The - Bonnie Guitar (1966)
- There Was a Tall Oak Tree - Dorsey Burnette (1960)
- These are the Ancient Forests - Jim Stoltz (2003)
- Thorn Tree in the Garden - Derek and the Dominos (1970)
- Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree - Johnny Carver (1973)
- Timberline - The Psycho Sisters (1994)
- Tree, The - Erin Hay (2005)
- Tree in the Meadow, A - Margaret Whiting (1948)
- Tree on a Hill - Peter Rowan (1994)
- Trees - Al Hibbler and His Orchestra (1951)
- Under Branches - The Association (1969)
- Under the Sycamore Tree - Sara Hickman (1989)
- Urban Rainforest - Cyril Neville (2003)
- Walk in the Black Forest, A - Horst Jankowski (1965)
- Walk Through the Trees, A - The Foundations (1969)
- Walker's Woods - Robert Mitchum (1967)
- We Carved Our Hearts on the Old Oak Tree - Mac and Bob (1932)
- Weepin' Willow Blues - Rory Block (1991)
- Weeping Willow - The Country Gentlemen (1960)
- Welcome to Yosemite National Tree - Bill Dana (1991)
- When the Maples Turn - Andrew McKnight (2004)
- Where the Very Same Cottonwoods Grow - Sons of the San Joaquin (1996)
- Whispering Grass, Don't Tell the Trees - Erskine Hawkins (1940)
- Whispering Pines - The Band (1969)
- Wild Turkey Woods - Mike Esposito (2001)
- Willow Road - Georgia Gibbs (1946)
- Willow Tree - Ferlin Husky (1961)
- Willow Weep for Me - Diana Krall (2006)
- Willow Weeps, The - Kathy Linden (1960)
- Wind and the Tree, The - Rose Lee Maphis (1960)
- Wind in the Trees - Bland Simpson (2003)
- Wind in the Willows, The - Rod Lauren (1964)
- Withering Tree - Traffic (1968)
- Woodland Visions - The Flute Clan (2005)
- Woodman, Spare That Tree - Phil Harris (1948)
- World's Biggest Cedar Tree, The - Slim Dusty (1990)
- You Can't Clearcut Your Way to Heaven - Darryl Cherney (1996)
- You Can't See the Trees - Barry Gordon (1962)
- You're Barking up the Wrong Tree Now - Red Sovine (1950)
Songs about Leaves
- Autumn Leaves - Roger Williams (1955)
- Ballad From Vietnam (The Rain on the Leaves) - Miller (1956)
- Bronze Leaves Fall First - Aeroc (2004)
- Falling Leaf - Curly Fox (1949)
- Falling Leaves - Grandpa Jones (1964)
- Farewell Green Leaves - Steve Ashley (1992)
- Fig Leaves Are Falling - Allan Sherman (1968)
- Green Leaves of Summer - The Chad Mitchell Trio (1964)
- Last Leaf, The - The Cascades (1963)
- Leaves are the Tears of Autumn - Bonnie Guitar (1968)
- Leaves Fall - Chris Thile (1997)
- Leaves Mustn't Fall, The - Moon Mullican (1950)
- Leaves Turn to Paper, The - Oscar Brand (1985)
- Lullaby of the Leaves - Lou Stein (1994)
- Maple Leaf Waltz - The Pinetoppers (1951)
- New Leaf, A - Jimmy Reed (1965)
- Til the Last Leaf Shall Fall - Statesmen Quartet (1957)
- When Autumn Leaves Begin to Fall - Bill Clifton (1959)
- When the First Leaves Fall - Steve Gillette and Cindy Mangsen (2000)
- When the Maples Turn - Andrew McKnight (2004)