To the Editor:

Kudos to Claire Theune for her letter to the editor on Friday, February 16 (Right Tree, Right Place). At her recommendation, I did read the CT DEEP Task Force paper written after Hurricane Irene (2012). Thank you for that advice, Claire.

The issue at hand is roadside forests, which comes to light as Eversource has come through Newtown bringing unimaginable destruction to Newtown’s roadways. It is also my understanding that they plan to do an additional 100 miles of roadside tree clearing. But Eversource’s tree trimming program is not the topic of my letter. I am writing to better define the remediation process.

There are two types of roadside landscapes. One is for homeowners, and the other is forests and woodlands.

Homeowners in Newtown want their property to be beautiful by designing their own landscape. They should be conscious of native plantings, position of the trees on their property, and the general landscape they are planting. There are plenty of landscapers, books, websites, and nurseries to help them execute their landscape dreams.

Homeowners will plant larger, established trees and shrubs to have a more instant landscape. More money, less time to remediation.

However, planting roadside trees that are an extension of a woodland is a completely different matter. We humans should not presume that we know exactly what and where to plant for forest remediation.

The only true database of this knowledge is Nature herself. There already exists in the soil of the clear cut properties the seed base of what should be grown. As protectors of forests, we should only do two things: allow the seeds already in the ground to flourish, and remove any non-native or invasive plants. The biggest investment in this procedure is time.

By spending less money and more time, Newtown can have a more resilient forest environment.

Harvey Pessin

Southbury