What is an old-growth forest? What does it look like and feel like?

Many picture in their mind's eye a vast space covered by huge trees as far as the eye can see. This makes sense, old should mean big, right?

Forests are communities, much like human communities in certain ways, and what does an old civilization look like? Not just a bunch of tall, old people. 

The old-growth forests in southern Ontario contained trees of all ages and sizes. Succession allowed for younger stands, meadows, prairies, savannas, wetlands and openings of various sizes as larger trees died and fell, or windstorms and wildfires caused disturbances.These were diverse ecosystems containing more tree and shrub species than today’s forest and providing habitat for greater numbers and different forms of life, including several species that are now considered rare or endangered. 

Originally this forest was home to over sixty varieties of different tree species including red and white pine, eastern white cedar, hemlock, black spruce, sugar maple, basswood, aspen, and white and yellow birch. The predominant species, the white pine, as well as the red, now makes up less than 3% of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands forests due to excessive logging in the mid 1800’s. 

If you are out looking for “old trees” you may be surprised because most of Ontario’s oldest trees are relatively small. Tree size and age are not strongly related, especially in very old trees (learn more about recognizing old trees) so you may pass a “small” tree by not realizing its age. 

In the absence of large, undisturbed tracts of forest like this many species are in decline or have disappeared altogether. 28 species of birds and mammals that prefer old-growth habitat lived here and now several species of birds, including the cerulean warbler, are considered rare or endangered. Wolves, grey foxes, elk, woodland caribou and passenger pigeons can no longer be found in southern Ontario forests.

Does that mean it’s over, it’s done, there’s no going back?

My favourite paragraph from, THE OLD-GROWTH FORESTS OF SOUTHERN ONTARIO:

Restoring old-growth forest on lands cleared for agriculture could take several hundred years or more. However, many old-growth features can be restored more quickly. One of the easiest ways to restore old-growth features is to leave the forest alone. In a hundred years or so, it will become more like the wild, damp and shaggy place it once was. As trees decline and die, they will become nesting and denning sites for birds and mammals. Dead wood, decomposing on the forest floor, will create habitat for many of the less visible species in the forest and provide energy and nutrients to support new life. Eventually, the species composition will become more like that of the presettlement forest.

Easiest way? Leave it alone.

Where we are affects what we plant (or, what plants itself)

Each tree species in Ontario has site specific soil requirements that affect tree species distribution and growth. Here our geological foundation is mainly till (mixture of unsorted and unstratified clay, silt, sand gravel and boulders) with some glaciofluvial (deposited by rivers) and glaciolacustrine (deposited by lakes) features. 

Our forest is the second largest forest region in Ontario. Extending along the St. Lawrence River and across central Ontario to Lake Huron it continues west of Lake Superior along the border with Minnesota. It is dominated by Hardwood forests, featuring species such as maple, oak, Yellow Birch, white and Red Pine. Coniferous trees such as White Pine, Red Pine, Hemlock and White Cedar, commonly mix with deciduous broad-leaved species, such as Yellow Birch, sugar and Red Maples, basswood and Red Oak.

For all of this great diversity of tree species where we live is just slightly above “Southern Ontario”, an area dominated by industrial agriculture and urban sprawl. We see more and more of this in our direct surroundings. Quite a bit of clearcutting going on in the area, not a lot of letting the forest alone.

I follow a guy on Instagram who’s a hedgelayer - The Westcountry Hedgelayer - and I wish that we had more hedgerows here, more trees left along the fence lines and replanted as they aged, wider margins allowed for wildlife to promote corridors that sustain life instead of obliterate it from the landscape. 

You may wonder, does it really matter?

Food is important, housing is important. It's hard to build houses around trees. Larger farms produce more food, easier and larger fields (no natural spaces left, just giant swaths of ploughed earth) mean it's easier for farmers. And yes, that is absolutely true. Easier, easier, easier. 

The article, In Defense of Hard: When Easier Isn't Better by P.J. Onori, has nothing to do with forests or plants or gardens or wildlife or anything I’ve just been talking about. But the concept remains the same. The kernel of truth that when we make it this easy it is to our detriment, we lose important things, things that matter, that can define us. 

Some of our most rewarding moments are rooted in overcoming challenges.

There needs to be an expectation or even a demand for people to learn and grow in order to "get to the good stuff."

In dumbing down our language, our concepts and processes, we are oftentimes warping its true form.

He was here speaking mainly about language, but I think it can segue easily into native planting. We have dumbed down our native planting language to the point that we have lost much of the original habitat that this region produced, even the understanding of it, and its subsequent wildlife and food webs. How can we care about something we’ve never known?

Educating them on how to do something is not enough, there should be education on why it's important. People enjoy learning if the subject is interesting and engaging, it is the job of design to not just deliver simplicity, but to also provide delight.

This is the main reason why I started this blog. When you do so much research on a subject to inform yourself, why not start a conversation, a community for everyone to get involved with? A place for passionate people. 

Challenging users in the correct manner will ultimately lead to more engaged, informed, and self-sufficient users. Informed users have a better idea of what they want and can better articulate why they want it. Most importantly, a user who is engaged with a subject is more willing and able to grow with it.

This is where we want to end up - engaged, informed and self-sufficient. 

Don’t you want to be able to plant a tree or a flower and know why this particular plant should be here in this soil type, on this particular longitude and latitude of Ontario, knowing the pollinators and songbirds that it will interact with because it is exactly the right choice for where you live? 

Because we would also know what happens when we don’t make this choice. When we plant invasives that take over and destroy the native habitat and confuse or even kill local pollinators and songbirds. When we plant cultivars that aren’t even food for the pollinators that know their forebears. Supporting this life supports our very own. 

Even with trees, with types and ages and how we manage them, we can have a huge impact. 

Tomorrow we’ll look at one specific species that has been affected.