If Trees Could Talk — Hamilton's Talking Trees

In October 2025, the idea I first introduced as the "Tweeting Tree Kit" — developed with Dr. Andrew Hirons (Myerscough College) and SoilMania — became Canada's first Talking Trees, installed in two Hamilton parks. The seed was planted nearly three years earlier, when I gave the opening keynote at the ISA Ontario conference and Katie Mayne, the City of Hamilton's Senior Project Manager of Forestry and Horticulture, was in the audience. She spent the next two and a half years securing funding and support to bring it to life. On installation day, we outfitted an 85–100-year-old silver maple in Victoria Park (soon named "Acer the Carbon Eraser") and an 80–100-year-old black walnut in Captain Cornelius Park ("Bark Vader") with soil-life sensors, dendrometers, and FloraPulse probes — measuring moisture, temperature, salinity, pH, oxygen, and daily growth and shrinkage. The trees now post about their own thirst, stress, and growth on social media, turning invisible tree data into a public story. The project — branded If Trees Could Talk and funded in part through Hamilton's Climate Change Reserve — is built on a simple bet: data becomes dialogue, dialogue becomes story, and story becomes stewardship. Thank you to Landscape Trades and Landscape Ontario for covering this important story!