Let’s Save the 94th St Maple Leaf Mother Grove

The heart of one of Maple Leaf’s largest Mother Groves (page 2) may be clearcut. 

About Maple Leaf’s Mother Groves

The City of Seattle’s definition of a grove is eight trees with trunks at least 12-inches in diameter, with a contiguous canopy. But Maple Leaf’s Mother Groves are super-groves. They contain as many as 60 trees, span most of the properties on their blocks, and function much like intact native Pacific Northwest ecosystems. 

They are reservoirs of biodiversity for iconic native species relying on forests to survive. Aerial views show about 22 of them in the Maple Leaf neighborhood, making Maple Leaf a rare habitat in Seattle!

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Developer Greencity Homes Has Filed Plans to Remove the Heart of This Grove

Greencity is not hiding their intent. The first sentence on their application is:

“There are Tier 2 trees on the site that will keep the project from achieving the maximum lot coverage permitted. We would like verification and information on the process for tree removal.”

Greencity plans to use Seattle’s artificially large “tree protection area” loophole to clearcut every tree. And they’re counting on Seattle’s building department (SDCI) to approve their Lot Sprawl plan, which intentionally spreads structures to the edge of the lot and removes all trees.  It’s a waste of space, but it results in higher sales prices on the new houses, bigger profits for the developer, and more revenue for SDCI. Even though this loophole was closed by Amendment 102, this project will be grandfathered in.

Simply moving two of these structures together with one shared wall would save most of the trees:  

Groves are Greater Than the Sum of Their Individual Trees 

Groves work as mutual aid networks for their individual trees—sort of like a tree trade association. Trees in groves are resilient and much less likely to decline and become hazard trees. Growing together, trees take care of each other in a few key ways:

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1. 🍄  The Fungal Network: The underground root and fungal network is a “superhighway” for trees to send each other key nutrients and disease-fighting chemicals. Trees that have high resources — those blessed with lots of light, nitrogen, water — can transfer some of their abundance to the trees who are resource-constrained in shady or dry spots.
2. 🌬️  Free AC: Trees in groves keep each other — and us — cooler in the summer. On days when temperatures are in the 90s F, groves have measured temps 15 F degrees cooler than street temperatures. This is an increasingly critical benefit not only for the trees themselves, but also for the birds and wildlife who live in the groves. It is a great benefit to the trees’ human neighbors as well.
3. 🌊  Disaster-Proofing: Trees are more storm-proof in groves, and soak up storm water, reducing flooding. Groves work as a team. They are better able to withstand wind and other extreme weather. They clean pollution from the air, filter storm water, reduce flooding, and mitigate urban heat islands. 

Tree Removals Put the Whole Grove at Risk — Which is Why Seattle’s Groves are Supposed to be Legally Protected.

Removing large trees always results in a loss of its public health and ecological benefits, but if those trees are removed from within a grove, the loss is magnified exponentially and can result in the eventual loss of the entire grove. With a key large tree gone, formerly sheltered trees are exposed to the elements, and no longer have the support of interlocking roots and the fungal network. As those trees decline and become hazard trees, they must also be removed. Eventually the grove is gone, usually replaced with small ornamental trees which supply a tiny fraction of the former grove. For this reason Seattle classifies groves as Tier 2 (protected), above and beyond individual trees.