Hi everybody this is Joe Lample the Joe behind Joe Gardner and welcome to the

Joe Gardner show today is a great story about a man after my own heart

basically somebody who loves trees and the timing of this episode is interesting because a few weeks ago I read a post in the New York Times

by previous podcast Margaret Rinkle.

She writes a column in the New York Times and this one particular article was about how the cutting down a mature trees doesn't get enough attention and people just tend to take it for granted sometimes and just think it's okay to replace a sapling and everything will be just as good.

But she went on to share some sentiments and gave some great examples and then I went on to read all the comments

about all the sad stories of all the big mature trees that were getting cut down

just because they were in the way or for no particular reason and just on and on and on.

There were hundreds of comments like that. And it really is sad because it takes 50 years or more for a tree to mature to

a substantial size and that's when the real ecological value of that tree is able to shine, but it just seems

like they are a commodity these days and that they can easily be replaced, at least by many

people, not by me, not by Margaret, and likely many of you.

And ironically, today, as I record this before the podcast goes live tomorrow,

I noticed that our friend Margaret Roach just did a feature on Basil Camue,

our guest today on his story, which is our story for this episode so let me tell you about that

Basil reached out to me about a book that he had recently written and it's called

from Wasteland to Wonder easy ways we can help heal Earth in the sub slash urban

landscape it has a catchy title and subtitle but really caught my attention

was the fact that Basil worked with his dad in a tree service cutting down trees

They're in the Raleigh, North Carolina area and that was their business

But along the way not too far it, they decided that maybe rather than cutting down trees, they would consult and encourage people to leave their trees and why that might be the more appropriate choice in taking a completely different approach.

dare I say a 180 degree change in their business.

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