CREATING YOUR OWN URBAN FOREST


Home gardens, whether indoor or out, provide us with much.  They provide esthetic pleasure, food to eat, medicines to heal, a safe haven and improve our physical environment.  Throughout the ages and in varied cultures we have learned much about life and our world from plants.  They inspire, console and nurture.  Gardeners the world over have experienced receiving much more than they invest in their gardens.  A garden can be many things.  It can be the potted plant on the desk at work, the terrace planters or the yard plantings.  The urban forest is all of these.  It is anywhere mankind has brought plants into his/her world.  It is the recognition that we have much to gain from recognizing an interdependence with our fellow earthlings of the plant kingdom.

Now let us look at how we can build our own forests.  Select the type you are interested in for information and interactive consulting.  Indoors or out you can create your own urban forest to improve your environment and your well-being.

Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
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.

 

 

 

Archbishop Khoren Nar Bey de Lusignan (d. 1892)

Armenian Poems Rendered into English Verse by Alice Stone Blackwell

The first green leaves
Scarce are the clouds' black shadows
Pierced by a gleam of light,
Scarce have our fields grown dark again,
Freed from the snow-drifts white,
When you, with smiles all twinkling,
Bud forth o'er hill and vale.
O first-born leaves of spring-time,
Hail to your beauty, hail!
Not yet to our cold meadows
Had come Spring's guest, the swallow,
Not yet the nightingale's sweet voice
Had echoed from the hollow,
When you, like joy's bright angels,
Came swift to hill and dale.
Fresh-budded leaves of spring-time,
Hail to your beauty, hail!
Your tender verdant colour,
Thin stems and graceful guise,
How sweetly do they quench the thirst
Of eager, longing eyes!
Afflicted souls at sight of you
Take comfort and grow gay.
New-budded leaves of spring-time,
All hail to you to-day!
Come, in the dark breast of our dales
To shine, the hills between!
Come, o'er our bare and shivering trees
To cast a veil of green!
Come, to give sad-faced nature
An aspect blithe and new!
O earliest leaves of spring-time,
All hail, all hail to you!
Come to call up, for new-born Spring,
A dawn of roses fair!
Come, and invite the breezes light
To play with your soft hair!
Say to the fragrant blossoms,
"Oh, haste! men long for you!"
Hail, earliest leaves of spring-time,
Young leaves so fresh and new!
Come, come O leaves, and with sweet wings
Of hope from yonder sky
Cover the sad earth of the grave
Wherein our dear ones lie! Weave o'er the bones so dear to us
a garland wet with dew
Ye wings of hope's bright angels,
Young leaves so fresh and new!
 
Issa (Cup of Tea) the humanist haiku poet (b. 1763-d.1828)
a sermon with
hand gestures, see
the summer trees		 hôdan no
temane mo miete
natsu kodachi
This page contains an impressive collection of quotes from famous people and literature.  These quotes all relate to the importance of nature to mankind.  Some also deal with man's responsibility to nature.  Definitely a page to spend your time with.

 

This site offers advise on personal well-being. This is not medical advise. For medical advise you should see your personal physician or other care provider. Advise given here (including the aromatherapy blends) is not meant to be a replacement for professional medical care. No one connected to this site is a Physician.

click on the rose to return to the Floratherapy main page