Thank you for moving this discussion to this forum. I've had this discussion before with skeptics and it's tiresome. It's a topic I've been following for many years. You don't need the New Scientist article to read about this, there is a lot of good information out there.
It's not a popular mainstream subject because it casts serious doubts on clear cutting; the logging practice of taking out all the trees in a given area, basically laying waste to a hundred acres at a time.
Trees care for their offspring. Mycorrhiza, a type of fungus is used by their root systems to carry information and nutrients to young trees. It's a symbiotic relationship.
Plants and trees also communicate with insects and other bugs through chemical signals, which they use to alert predators to their prey, which happen to be eating the plants/trees.
Walnut trees have been shown to self administer a kind of aspirin to themselves when under stress, indicating a kind of pain awareness in trees.
The list goes on . . .