At the end of February, the city’s Parks Advisory Commission heard an unusual pitch: The local chapters of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby and Wild Ones, along with the Buhr Park Children’s Wet Meadow Project, were seeking permission to create a “pocket forest” in Buhr Park. Their plan, they explained, called for planting native trees and shrubs densely in a fifty-by-fifty-foot plot. The competition for sunlight would make the trees grow faster, causing them to absorb more carbon from the atmosphere.

Barbara Lucas, Marta Manildi, and Jeannine Palms in February. They hope to break ground on a pocket forest this fall. | Photo: Mark Bialek

Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki first saw the benefits of planting a diverse mix of native trees and shrubs close together in the 1970s. Through his outreach, many pocket forests have since been planted across the world. They’re affordable, easy to establish, and require less maintenance than other woodlands, because the dense shade keeps moisture in and minimizes weeds.

The concept was first raised here during a meeting of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby Healthy Forests Action Team in September 2023. Environmental media producer Barbara Lucas was intrigued—and realized she had created something similar twenty-five years ago when she was living in Northville and replaced much of her lawn with native trees, shrubs, and ground cover. The need to plant more trees to mitigate global warming makes it even more timely now.

Native trees, Lucas explains, are resilient and support more insects, birds, and other wildlife than imported ones. The tree canopy they create also has social and psychological benefits. “In Ann Arbor, we think we’re really environmentally progressive, but most people in this area hadn’t heard of” pocket forests, Lucas says. “I thought, ‘We could be doing this here.’”

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“A forest is a good thing for a carbon sink,” says Wild Ones chapter president Marta Manildi—not just in the trees, but in deep-rooted native perennials. Manildi and Lucas are on the steering committee spearheading the proposal; other members include local Wild Ones secretary Meg Delaney and Wet Meadow Project founder Jeannine Palms.

Lucas, an experienced video producer—her environmental series The Green Room aired on WEMU radio and CTN television—created a video about pocket forests, and last spring, the group began reaching out to local experts on native plants to get their input. They’re also surveying people who have planted pocket forests in similar climates to learn how they’ve fared. And they created a share list to recruit donations of native shrubs and trees; nearly 100 have been pledged so far.

Lucas said she found a “champion” in Palms, a founder of Blossom Preschool who was successful in bringing the Children’s Wet Meadow to Buhr Park in 1997. Six more wet meadows have since been installed to hold rainwater runoff, mitigating flooding in the park and reducing the amount of water that goes into Malletts Creek. They’re also “providing habitat for critters including birds and pollinators,” Palms points out, as well as educational sites for students.

Palms says that neighbors have been extremely enthusiastic about the Wet Meadow, and she’s now focused on engendering the same type of support for a pocket forest in the park.

“With the pool, skating rink, and the ball field, it’s very well used by the neighbors around here,” Palms says, so she sees tremendous potential for the forest to be both educational and a community builder. “Anything that pulls neighbors together around something that’s not in and of itself political and contentious is wonderful.” Manildi hopes it will also be an important demonstration of the effectiveness of native plants in improving environments and keeping out invasive species.

Delaney, who’s also a board member of the national Wild Ones, says the project perfectly embodies the group’s goal of promoting native plants. “We’re always looking for ways to heighten community awareness and to show people that they can take action that can make a difference,” she says. They hope to make the one in Buhr Park a model: “We want people to come by and say, ‘Oh my gosh, I could totally do this.’” Sean Reynolds, a senior analyst with the city’s Office of Sustainability and Innovations, says the office plans to add information on how to create pocket forests to its 10,000 Trees Initiative webpage.

Lucas was able to win over an initial skeptic, Doug Tallamy, an entomology and wildlife ecology professor at the University of Delaware and author of several books for the homeowner, including Bringing Nature Home. Tallamy was quoted in a New York Times article expressing concerns that some of the plants in a pocket forest could get crowded out and die, so it would be better to plant fewer of them.

After Lucas reached out to him, Tallamy is now supportive of pocket forests—he’s even agreed to speak at a planned June online forum on how they can help address climate change and biodiversity loss. “I actually changed my mind,” he says, after visiting some pocket forests: “If you plant densely and right away, you get a lot of benefits before the dominants shade out other plants.”

Tallamy, who’d also worried about the cost of purchasing so many trees, is intrigued by the idea of reusing existing native plants. He says there are 135 million acres of residential landscapes which can be restored. “You need functioning ecosystems everywhere, not just in natural areas … Pocket forests are a great way to get plants into communities, including underserved communities,” and everyone in the area can get involved, providing an educational component. “It’s very, very positive.”

Bob Grese, a professor emeritus in the U-M’s School for Environment and Sustainability and former director of the Nichols Arboretum and Matthaei Botanical Gardens, also sees merit in the idea. When leaves are left where they fall, they help to retain moisture and create a more forgiving environment for the trees as they grow, he explains. Studies tend to show “that the trees grow faster, they’re healthier, and they require less work.” Compact plantings are also easier to fence off from deer and other animals, he adds.

Grese cautions that birds could spread the seeds of buckthorn, honeysuckle, and other invasive shrubs among the new trees, causing them to look “pretty unkempt.” So some neighbors may not necessarily embrace the appearance without “intelligent maintenance.”

“It may look a little messy at the beginning, as all native gardens do as they’re being established,” acknowledges Shari Grogan-Kaylor, who lives directly behind the Buhr Park ice rink. She initially worried that the pocket forest could infringe on space used for outdoor yoga in the summer—but after visiting the site with Palms realized that would not be the case. Grogan-Kaylor is now supportive, pointing out that in three years, the forest will provide much-needed shade for yoga.

“The more people see and understand these forests and get exposed to all the good, the more receptive people will be,” Manildi predicts.

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In February, the Parks Advisory Commission gave its blessing to the plan. Remy Long, the city’s deputy manager for natural area preservation, land acquisition, and sustainability, says the necessary city approvals have been granted for the work, but before the collaborative breaks ground, a formal agreement needs to be created and signed. “We’re all aiming to have it all in place by mid-April,” Long says.

The groups are looking toward a fall planting. “There’s a lot of gloom and doom out there” about global warming, Delaney says. “But there’s also positive action that you can take, and that positive action is really satisfying.

“The more we talk with people about it, the more enthusiasm they are radiating back to us,” he says. “It just makes sense.”