3/11/12
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| forest in South Carolina |
One of the overall themes of the book
The New American Landscape, that I have recently read, is the numerous jobs that ecosystems perform. To give an example, here is a list the book provided of the many things trees and bushes in a forested area do at once:
- building humus via leaf litter,
- breaking heavy soil with roots,
- catching rain with leaves and funneling water towards the trunk,
- holding soil in place with roots
- cooling the forest by its shade,
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| northern cardinal |
- sheltering birds
- sequestering carbon
- sprouting seedlings
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| variable cracker butterfly |
- nurturing insect
- exhaling oxygen
- supporting hundreds os species, directly and indirectly
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| American Mountain Ash fruit |
The book argues that this is why nature's designs show resilience and abundance, and that our gardens need to behave like ecosystems.
