Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma

Goodbye, my friend Geijera parviflora

You came to our tiny hamlet some three decades ago, and we gave you a new

home to grace the heart of our community along Main Street. You arrived from another continent and was named the Australian willow.

You were just a sapling of green youth and set forth to bring a bright bit of

happiness in your canopy to anoint our town with willowy evergreen leaves.

I’ll never forget that Sunday when we had a grand tree celebration with hundreds

of town folk who came to start the urban forestry program here in Fallbrook, and

you and other trees were planted by volunteers in the heart of downtown. That was a glorious day that boosted greening throughout the community and has been growing ever since.

The shade you provided helped cool the environment. The wispy leaves made a

home for birds to nestle in a while your tiny white flowers provided nectar for the

hummingbirds to feed their young.

Thank you for coming to us and all the benefits you offered, but more than that,

thank you for bringing people together, sharing a common goal of helping the

earth and one another, for trees make a town a better place to live.

Local volunteers brought you water and food and trimmed your branches when

needed in your youthful days of growing up with loving care.

You were a film star featured in the “Necklace of Leaves” video long ago, but shall

not be forgotten in this film distributed all over America.

You and three other tree friends are gone now for the reasons of safe walking

along the avenue, but the bareness and void that is left, tells us what we have lost

through the “simple act of planting trees.”

The earth where you lived here in Fallbrook now is empty but should tell us the

immediate need to plant trees for all the benefits of our little blue marble floating

in space.

He who plants trees brings happiness for others to enjoy.

Roger Boddaert

The Tree Man of Fallbrook

 

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