Several people we met along the way had dropped his name as if his recent book “Bringing Nature Home” (Timber Press, 2007) would revolutionize the landscaping industry, which is currently worth about $50 billion dollar annually.

Why? Because Tallamy shares the data he’s collected over the course of 20 or so years studying insects’ dependency on native plants.

His precautionary tale (based on hard data) is pretty important: if we don’t plant native plants and trees in our backyards, we are taking a part in the dismantling of the food web we depend on for survival.

One of the most quoted parts of his book is where he states that one oak tree in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. can feed/house about 600 different species of Lepidopterae. That’s just moths and butterflies! (There are many more juicy tidbits in the book. Click on the book cover image above to purchase, and a percentage will go to help the Plant a Wish project!)

Once we heard the buzz, we knew we needed to meet him, plant a tree with him in Delaware, and interview him extensively for our film. And we hit a home run!

Here’s an excerpt from our forthcoming documentary. We plan to post about one per week, featuring various experts and tree caretakers we’ve met along the way so far.

Please enjoy!

Doug Tallamy is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware, where he has written more than 65 research articles and has taught insect taxonomy, behavioral ecology, and other subjects. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities.

The Plant a Wish Tour has successfully completed its first phase: 25 states now have native trees (and wishes) planted, along with caretaker/guardians who will be looking after the trees and making sure they get the water and love that they need.

We’ve planted 48 native trees in total and collected 83 hours of footage!

We could never have done this without the long list of supporters who contributed their time, efforts, services, supplies, and funds to make this happen.

Now we’re back on our home island of Maui, and getting some much-needed rest after traveling over 7,000 miles in 5 weeks!

We have a lot of material (photo, video, audio) to share with you, and we’re in the process of getting all of that organized to share with you through this blog on a regular basis.

We hope you’ll take the time to go through the pages we’ve set up for each state – each one has a slide show and details about the plantings we held there.

So many wonderful memories were created, and we’re still buzzing from such a wonderful, positive experience getting to know America The Beautiful.

Special thanks to our sponsors Skyline Eco-Adventures and Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods for the support and commitment to our project.

More very soon!

It’s been a while since our last blog update, but those of you following us on Facebook and Twitter know that we’ve been sending you real-time posts from the field.

Today is Joe’s birthday, and we are spending the day in our nation’s capital. We’ll be visiting with American Forests’ “Historic Trees” program staff, and will be picking up a Moon Sycamore (a tree grown from seeds that have been to the moon) to plant in the D.C. area.

Just to get you up to speed, since we last wrote on our blog, we’ve traveled to Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, planting native trees in each state! (Click on the state name to see photos and details about each planting. For a full photo gallery that is updated regularly, click here: http://plantawish.org/media-room/photo-gallery/)

Our travels have been eye-opening, inspiring, and incredibly rewarding. Each time we’ve gathered with a community to plant a native tree together, we have been reminded of the beauty of the simple act of planting a tree. And we’ve made so many great friends along the way – our only regret is that we can only spend a day or so in each location. (We’re already planning to hold film screenings in each place once the film is complete.)

This experience is turning out to be much more than we could have ever hoped for. Not only have we learned so much about the powers that trees have to make us safe, healthy, and even happy, but we have seen (and documented in gorgeous 24p video) the incredible community bonding that can occur when folks gather around to plant a tree together. Priceless stuff.

Please follow our project on Facebook, at http://www.facebook.com/plantawish – and please feel free to chime in to let us know what you think!