From Wasteland to Wonder: Easy Ways We Can Help Heal Earth in the Sub/urban Landscape, by Basil Camu
“When in doubt, look to ecosystems for guidance.”
This is as plain a statement of Acres U.S.A.’s vision as we could write ourselves. Yet in this case it comes from the urban/suburban context — from self-proclaimed “treecologist” Basil Camu, who owns a tree-care company in Raleigh, North Carolina, and a non-profit called Project Pando that grows and gives away native tree stock. Camu’s book From Wasteland to Wonder presents the case for ecological management of urban and suburban spaces and provides helpful tips for those interested in getting started.
This is obviously not a book focused on farmers, and most Acres U.S.A. readers are in rural areas. But we all interact with more-populated regions and know people who live there. While agriculture plays a big part in our environmental issues, suburbia isn’t helping much. We Americans mow (and often irrigate and fertilize) more lawn than the entire state of Pennsylvania! Some helpful perspective and tips on how to better manage these spaces is certainly needed — especially since almost every farm has some lawn and non-farmed space.
Camu’s recommendations for ecological lawn management are sensible and practical. Focus on improving the soil by leaving the leaves and by foregoing fertilizers and other chemicals (especially mosquito spraying services), and add compost. He includes helpful instruction on turning lawns into prairie meadows.
Most of the book is focused on tree management, though. For the owner of a tree-care company, he makes a compelling case that his services are often not required — many trees are taken down unnecessarily, in his opinion, and existing trees can and should almost always be saved. Mature trees provide exponentially more ecosystem benefits than younger trees. Even dead parts of trees are habitat to many beneficial species of birds and bugs.
Camu’s tree establishment philosophy is unique — it’s somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between Mark Shepard’s STUN (sheer, total, utter neglect) and Austin Unruh’s POGO (plant one, get one). Camu advocates planting pocket forests — clusters of densely planted trees and shrubs — well mulched from the beginning. This provides a much more realistic, and thus healthy, environment — how many trees in nature don’t have to compete with others for sunlight and nutrients? Because the roots of the closely planted trees are interwoven with one another, they support each other in terms of nutrition, physical support and disease resistance. This method also produces taller, straighter trees with fewer side branches, which produces trees less prone to breaking/falling than solitary ones. For existing trees, Camu recommends structural pruning to create this grouped effect.
Planting many young saplings together has another important benefit: it eliminates many maintenance tasks, including watering, without increasing installation costs. The cluster quickly shades out competition, reducing the need for weeding.
The last section of the book includes practical instructions on how to establish a simple tree nursery for native species with air-pruning boxes. QR codes throughout the book point the reader to accompanying videos and resources.
Establishing a more ecologically minded agriculture means having more ecologically minded citizens. From Wasteland to Wonder will help with this effort. As Camu says, “I’m hoping that as homeowners learn about these important topics — how to create soil, ditch pesticides, fill vacant spaces with native plants, and more — they will better understand the root of our major environmental issues, and this will affect how they vote and spend their money.”
