@jeanne-mayell Here's a link to the USDA Forest Service climate change tree atlas, for the Northeast US. It lists trees and notes how they are going to fare with climate change, so you can plant trees small or large that have the best likelihood of thriving.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/nrs/atlas/combined/resources/summaries/NCA/NCA_Northeast.pdf
Also, I just checked out a book in the library American Roots: Lessons and Inspiration from the Designers Reimagining Our Home Gardens. by Nick McCullough et al. Of course it is full of images of garden eye candy that I could never accomplish but each one comes with tips some of which are useful.
@marigold Thanks for sharing that!
currently industrialization in my county is destroying hundreds of acres of trees and habitat ... causing so much harm to the land, the air and the wildlife and precious resources. It causes me great pain to see the hundreds of years old growth forest go down.. polluting our local creeks and river and forever changing the face of the earth here for industrial buildings, paved parking lots, and high density areas with no green space left 😭
Extracting methane for energy from animal waste is a mixed bag. Bio-digesting manure is better than not using manure for energy, however, large amounts of cow manure suggests very large animal-farming operations which is not always humane and creates other environmental issues. The smallest bio-digester costs over a million dollars so it isn't a practical solution for a typical farm.
Yes, @marigold, thanks for sharing the climate change tree atlas.
Here is the url for the climate change atlas home page: https://www.fs.usda.gov/nrs/atlas/
They also have a bird atlas, links to all the regions in the US, and other resources. I found it on the website of my town's Shade Tree Commission.
@gbs Thanks for your comment about Doug Tallamy, a local hero here where I live, and the book you cited. I will check it out, especially because we will be planting in a month, weather permitting, and I have plans for my yard to become a forest.
@gbs Thanks for your comments about biodiversity and rewilding. You mentioned Doug Tallamy whose work inspired people around here to rewild their yards and our town's public lands. When I think of rewilding my grass yard, I think of Tallamy's chart of how much rewilding we homeowners can do by converting our yards to native foests. I will check out Planting in a Post-Wild World too, especially because we will be planting in a month, weather permitting, and I have plans for my yard to become a forest.
The most daunting challenge for me, however, is keeping rabbits out of my yard so the new plants can grow large enough that they won't devour them.
Hi Jeanne, Doug Tallamy is indeed extremely inspiring. The Thomas Rainer-Claudia West book is more about big concepts and ideas, although it does have planting guides, but hopefully it will be useful to you.
Wish I could help with the rabbits–we don't really get them down here.
I am so excited that you're planting your forest and can't wait to see pictures of it. You know what they say about a garden over the first three years of a new planting: first it sleeps, then it creeps, then it leaps. I have to continually remind myself to be patient and that the plants are putting down roots that first year or so.