Det enskilda trädet som meningsbärare
erfarenheter av två trädplanteringsprojekt i Helsingborg
Individual trees can act as carriers of meaning. When a person attributes deep meanings to a specific tree, a relationship between the person and the tree is created. To avoid conflicts between users and planners, increased awareness is required of how important individual trees may be to a person. The objective of this study was to elucidate persons? relationships with individual urban trees. This was done by studying two tree planting projects, and through studies of literature. The thesis discusses these questions: What does the relationship between a person and an individual tree look like? Is there any difference between older and younger persons? relationships with trees? How does the framing of a tree planting project affect the relationship between trees and the people who planted them? What can I as a landscape architect say about the effects of user participation in tree planting in urban public space?
One of the projects I?ve studied is a tree donor project in Helsingborg. Many of the tree donors have or have had a special relationship with an individual tree, within or outside the tree donor project. A relationship with a tree can be active or abstract. The tree donor?s reasons for participating in the tree donor project affected the strength of the relationship with the planted tree. Many of the active relationships with individual trees in this study, involves some sort of humanization of the tree. The other project I?ve studied is the Children?s Forest project in Helsingborg. Young adults, who took part in the project when they were 10-year-olds, were interviewed. None of the young adults have ever returned to the trees they planted in the Children's forest project, and consequently their relationship with those trees is not active. They have, however, an abstract relationship with their trees. A difference between children's and adults' relationship with individual trees lies in what they do while visiting their tree. Children often experience the tree through playing, and climb or build dens in it. Adults and elders are sitting beside their tree, observe it or touch it.
The result of the study indicates that four factors in a tree plantings project affect the relationship between a tree and the person who plants it: The place, the tree species and the tree appearance, the tree size, and the framing of the event surrounding the planting of the trees. These factors ought to be considered when for example an urban park management department is planning a tree planting project similar to the ones I?ve studied.
Tree planting projects can contribute to a stronger feeling of fellowship between the users involved. Active involvement in the planting of urban trees can make the users feel a stronger connection to their city, and make them feel more at home there.