This post is by Bill Spiewak, an arborist in Santa Barbara, CA, and originally appeared on his blog, Treemendous.

Last month in my arboriculture class, I may have implied to my students that this instructor is falling off the deep end. I asked them to stand and assume the yoga position, tree pose. My objective was to introduce them to the biomechanics of trees. Continue reading →

I’m going to start a new mini-featurette on the blog, which I’m calling “Big Tree, Little Tree.” Just side-by-side pictures of dramatically different-sized trees, highlighting the effect each creates on a streetscape. These were both taken in San Francisco’s Mission district. The little guy was in especially bad shape for at least one obvious reason. Continue reading →

Jake Sippy of Design Workshop has some nice words for Jim Urban’s book, Up By Roots. I thought the salient points that stuck with him from the book were very valuable, and worth repeating. For those of you who don’t own the book or haven’t been to an Up By Roots workshop, I highly recommend both.

Here are the takeaways that Jake jotted down to pique the interest of his readers: Continue reading →