CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Who will speak for the trees? The mission of the Lorax, the famous Dr. Seuss character, is being continued locally by arborist and artist Jake Van Yahres. The 38-year-old VCU graduate installed his latest work of guerilla art outside the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library.
It’s a 3 and 1/2 foot tall, 8-foot-wide rendition of the Lorax, using leaves as the character’s signature mustache. The Lorax is holding a white sign with black lettering imploring people to, “Leave the leaves, save the trees.” Van Yahres is hoping people will consider not blowing, raking and bagging their leaves this fall, because they’re a valuable source of nourishment for trees.
“In the forest setting, the leaves fall. Nobody picks them up, right? You go to the forest, and eventually you’ll come back in the summertime and the leaves have disintegrated,” Van Yahres told Cville Right Now on Friday. “And what’s happening with the leaves is, they break down. The nutrients leech off the leaves and the trees drink the nutrients back up. And so in an urban environment, 80% of the nutrients come from the trees’ fallen leaves. And when you when you bag those up, you’re basically robbing the tree of all its nutrients.”…