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Healing Trees

© Traute Klein, biogardener

The trees in the original Garden of Eden held the secret to life and healing. We can help to recreate our own Garden of Eden by planting healing trees. Rather than worry about the destruction of the South American rain forest, let's each worry about the health of the part of the earth which has been entrusted to our care. According to the book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible, the "Tree of Life" stands in the middle of the Garden of Eden, also called Paradise. According to the Book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible, its leaves provide healing to the nations. Every environmental conference I have ever heard of has focused on the South American rainforest and how to save it from further destruction. My first webpage was built in the GeoCities neighborhood called "Rainforest," and it certainly was a popular one. The term rainforest has become synonymous with environment, recycling, and organic gardening. It appeared to me that the webmasters of the GeoCities Rainforest sites were telling the world that looking after our own little paradise is just as vital to our own health and the health of this world as worrying about the South American rainforest. All plants are sources of life to this world, but trees hold a special place, if for not other reason than for their enormous size. It takes a lot of small plants to produce the same amount of chlorophyll and oxygen as one single tree.

Trees for Healing

When the white man settled the North American prairies, he found them well suited to grasslands. As a result, the original "bush," as prairie forests are called, was decimated to make way for expansive wheat fields. The center of the continent became the breadbasket of the world. In many areas of the prairies, none of the original vegetation remains. On my 20 acres of Manitoba prairie, I have been trying to recreate the kind Garden of Eden which Nature had intended for it. I have a little stand of the original bush left. The trees there are poplars and hawthorn, and wildflowers grow in their shade. I do not know of any medicinal benefits of poplars. Certainly they provide chlorophyll and oxygen which are building blocks of life. Hawthorn, however, is one of the best-known medicinal shrubs. Its leaves are indeed healing to the nations. The flowers and fruit share the same qualities.

Recreating Paradise

To stop the drain of nutrients from my piece of prairie and to undo the effects of years of herbicide and synthetic fertilizers, I stopped the growing of wheat cold turkey. If I had to do it over again, I would try to get seeds of native grasses and wildflowers to plant a natural prairie meadow. Well, I did the next best thing to it. I had alfalfa hay seeded, but I rarely have the hay cut. Leaving it on the land helps to trap snow in the winter, and that snow protects the trees from the effects of extreme temperature changes.

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