All of the summaries of the books we have read include (many) links. Links evaporate. I check them when I post the summary and randomly go back in over time to check. If you find a broken link, please let me know via a comment or a direct email. Let me know which link was broken and I will fix it, replace it, or remove it.
From the March discussion of Sproutlands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees by William Bryant Logan.
One member found a good podcast with transcript of an approximately 20 minute interview with the author. Interestingly (to me at least) the interviewer is named Margaret but she isn’t me! The page also has some interesting images and links to other information.
https://awaytogarden.com/how-we-and-the-trees-grew-together-sprout-lands-with-william-bryant-logan/
The chapter on Remembering describes his first job of pollarding at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Not a low-stakes project! https://www.metmuseum.org/press/news/2014/plaza-opening
Some images of different aerial hedges – not for the faint-hearted or those with a very short amount of time to prune. https://pithandvigor.com/2014/04/aerial-hedges/
An article on coppicing that shows images of the coppiced wood and products that can be made from them: https://bradforddistrictparks.org/ancient-art-of-coppicing-returns-to-st-ives/
A woodsman who works with coppiced wood with some pretty amazing photographs of his home: https://ben-law.co.uk/
The impact of coppicing on dormice populations (~ 20 min with some feedback from the speaker’s microphone). It’s a dry, scientific presentation but is interesting because the speaker talks about the impacts of coppicing on both plants and dormice and probably other fauna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WStlAa39uwc
Hedge laying (5:33): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Andv7a0NPEc
Building the Albaola the sea factory of the Basques. This website includes a lot of information about the project to rebuild the San Juan. : http://www.albaola.com/en
This 2 min 50 sec video, replete with noble music, is a fun look at the bulding of the ship. Project San Juan: https://vimeo.com/99023292
From the large (reconstructing a ship) to the small (relatively speaking because some of the baskets are mighty big), here are some images of baskets made by Karuk people in present-day California.
https://www.karuk.us/index.php/departments/peoples-center
The following website includes links to a number of short videos of a Karuk woman who gathers materials to make baskets today. https://karukbasketmaterials.blogspot.com/
Gathering and processing black fern: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXY91fuHGME&feature=emb_logo
I forget where now, but somewhere I read something about people eating the seeds of lamb’s quarters (aka quelitas). I know about eating the leaves but had never heard about eating the seeds. It will be a good way to reduce the out-of-control population in my yard.
https://www.wikihow.com/Eat-Lamb%27s-Quarters
In the chapter Nagereba, Logan constrasts two “New Towns” in Japan. Tama New Town was designed in a very industrial fashion while Shiwa New Town was designed to work with nature. Interestingly, the Sakuagaoka Park is near Tama New Town. The video clip is about a bird but I selected it to look at the coppiced wood.
Tama New Town: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo35oEWRHyo
Shiwa New Town: https://www.town.shiwa.iwate.jp/material/files/group/14/00869082.pdf
https://www.japanpolicyforum.jp/society/pt20181011200048.html
Sakuagaoka Park: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP3ARTJSFF4
Logan discussed some of his forays into forgotten and sometimes disgusting areas in and around New York City. One such project is Fresh Kills Park, a massive restoration of a formerly really massive dump. The first link is to the Park website; the second is a video of an architecture critic touring the site and speaking with people.
https://freshkillspark.org/the-park/the-park-plan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbm_K5JKkYI
I mentioned the movie, Kiss the Ground, that one could watch for free if one belongs to the Sierra Club. I watched it. It’s about soil and the capabilities of the soil, when it’s really soil and not just dirt, to sequester carbon. One interesting bit was a set of before and after images of the Loess Plateau in China. We had watched some of the work on that transformation for an earlier book we read. https://kissthegroundmovie.com/
I no longer remember how the movie the Call of the Forest came to be mentioned, but here’s a link to the film’s website. It might make a good movie for us once we can meet together in person. http://calloftheforest.ca/
I no longer have any idea of how the discussion turned to old roses (this is why I should finish this within a day or so of our discussion!) but here is a link that we talked about: https://antiqueroseemporium.com/
One member provided a link to UC Berkeley (her alma mater, if I recall correctly) with some pollarded trees on the campus: https://news.berkeley.edu/2011/12/14/campus-tree-pollarding/
She subsequently sent me another link about the pollarded trees: https://www.berkeleyside.com/2011/03/29/strong-sculptural-trees-bring-a-sense-of-community
One question came in from someone who wasn’t able to attend asking for instructions on coppicing and pollarding for fruit trees. My answer is that these two pruning techniques are designed to manage for wood, not for fruit so you wouldn’t use them for fruit production. I did find one article on coppicing apple trees but it was being done to supply apple wood for smoking and other wood uses.
In response to my summary of Demons in Eden, one person wrote and said that probably the thistle book I was thinking about is the one at the NPSNM website: https://www.npsnm.org/books/ where there are a couple books to be purchased and a couple available for free download.
One person also suggested another source for native plant identification. “Also, you might add George Miller’s excellent wildflower webpage as a great resource for learning the botany of the “good guys.” The photos are, of course, phenomenal. I’ve used it in the field when near a cell tower. https://www.wildflowersnm.com/Wildflowers_of_New_Mexico/Home.html ”
As always, if you have additional thoughts or ideas for me or for the group, let me know.