Gardening Tips and Tricks: How To Make Trees Grow Faster

“The Man Who Planted Trees,” in Mosaïcultures Internationales Competition at the Montreal Botanical Garden. Image by Flickr user AV Dezign, (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

“He that plants trees loves others beside himself.”

– Dr. Thomas Fuller, MD (1654 – 1734), British physician, writer, intellectual, preacher, in Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs, 1732

Over the years, I have observed (and learned by experience) that I have quite a knack for making trees grow rapidly.

Even slow-to-moderately growing trees (such as oaks) have responded phenomenally well under my guiding hand.

What and how to accomplish that?

Aside from planting in a well-lighted area, with adequately drained, properly hydrated & fertilized soil, there is but one thing we can do to encourage growth in trees. That one thing is

Alabama Common Core Math

According to Dr. Tommy Bice, Alabama State Superintendent of Education, high schools in the state have achieved an 80% graduation rate. While that sounds impressive, there is an underlying problem, which is this:

How do we know that the children being graduated are competent?

Competency is exemplified as being able to do something successfully. So if merely graduating high school was sufficient demonstration of competence, everyone with a high school diploma would be competent. But sadly, we know that is NOT the case. For example, one need only look to private high schools to so illustrate. Very few private high schools have any such problems. And, it is not to say that all public schools suffer problems. And yet, it is evidence as well that many courses taught in 1960, or even 1860 at the “high school” level are more advanced than those taught today.

For example, consider the following courses of study were required for a diploma of graduation from Middletown City High School, Connecticut in 1848:

Alabama: I love my state, and despise her corrupt officials.

This entry starts out in a wee bit different tenor, then points directly at the problem.

Read on to see what I mean.

Not many folks may recall Alabama‘s state song, which lyric reads, “Alabama, Alabama, I will aye be true to thee. From thy Southern shore where groweth, by the sea the orange tree.”

As a kid, I kinda’ thought it was