I first heard this story about trees on the “Adventurer” podcast episode talking about Melbourne. Just stumbled upon some info, found it pretty amusing, and thought to share it with you.

To protect the trees, in 2013, Melbourne's Urban Forest and Ecology team created an “Urban Forest Visual”. It includes all the trees across Melbourne's districts, now totaling over 70,000, each with its own unique ID and email address.

Originally, the purpose of setting up email addresses was to make it easy for folks to report on the trees' conditions, like if a tree was sick or damaged, etc. Interestingly, there weren't many emails about tree issues. Instead, people enjoyed writing letters to trees. The letter writers weren't just locals; they also came from around the globe, calling themselves some person, A Tree Lover, Not-a-koala, Your friend…

Some folks, never having met the tree in person and only seeing its photo on the official website, followed the tree's updates as if they were virtually nurturing it. Some passed by a tree every day and gradually formed a connection with it. There were those about to graduate, about to get married, about to move houses. Life changes, but the tree always stands tall.

Australian media ABC once did a special segment, which included some of the letters. Quite interesting stuff.

It reminds me of last weekend when I went to see the re-screening of "In the Mood for Love". At the end, Zhou Muyun goes to Angkor Wat and speaks out the secret he's kept for four years.

The theme of secrets shared with trees is maybe a universal romantic notion.

Tree Email effortlessly fulfills the “designers will never know how people will use their product” best practice.