‘The Power of Trees:’ Among the ‘Machines’ Fighting Climate Change

Benepe also padded past a trio of spiky-looking monkey-puzzle trees — more about them later — and paid homage to a huge hybrid oak that is wider than it is tall. It survived a powerful summer storm several years ago thanks to cables and bolts that the arborists at the garden rigged up to bind it back together.

Now Benepe was talking about the importance of seeing the trees in the forest.

“Many people come to a botanical garden for the roses, which are in full bloom now, or for the cherry trees or the flower shows, and they walk past the trees,” he said. “We’re trying to highlight the fact that the trees may be the most impressive part of our collection.”

And not just because the back stories are intriguing.

“One thing we know to help us combat climate change, not just address the impact of it, but to help reduce climate change, is preserving trees and preserving big old trees,” he said, “because that’s what’s working the hardest for us in a place like New York City.” Old trees, he said, “are these amazing machines invented by nature that absorb our pollution and give us back oxygen” — and, along the way, help to reverse climate change. “It’s not some romantic fantasy,” he said.

It is part of the message of “The Power of Trees,” an exhibition that opens tomorrow and showcases 52 trees, along with six new sculptures commissioned by the garden and AnkhLave Arts Alliance, which works to promote artists who are Black, Indigenous or People of Color. The trees, Benepe said, “are all growing in the same Brooklyn soil, and their roots are touching and their needles or leaves are touching, so it’s kind of like an image for Brooklyn, but just with plants.”

“The Power of Trees” comes at a bright moment for the garden. Attendance is up 30 percent from last year and higher than in 2019, a residual benefit of the pandemic lockdown in 2020, “when the only thing we could do was go to parks,” Benepe said. But while city parks were open through the pandemic, the garden was closed for several months. Benepe said there were days when the cherry trees were in bloom during the lockdown when people stood on the other side of the garden’s fence, just to get a glimpse.