Here are this year’s photos from the Bartlett Tree Lab study comparing different planting methods for urban trees. For comparison, check out last year’s set. And for a fuller chronological picture, you can see all the photos up to that point in this post.
Back in January we posted about a project in Shoreline, WA, where the Silva Cells were being used to extend a sidewalk rain garden underneath paving. This stretch of the project is finally completed! It looks amazing, and we’ve got a case study to tell you all about it.
I’ve been growing bamboo since 1978 and have made many mistakes. Some species of bamboo doesn’t do well in Ohio, where I’m based, because they won’t tolerate the cold weather in winter. In some cases I’ve left the plants growing in my yard if only to show others what won’t do well in my climate. To control bamboo’s growth… More
Bamboo. It is great stuff. It is beautiful to look at, sounds neat in the wind, and makes a lovely privacy screen from your neighbors. You know the saying good fences make good neighbors (or good privacy screens make good neighbors). But if bamboo isn’t contained, those same neighbors you are trying to get some private time… More
Kaid Benfield’s recent blog post about seeing cities as environmental solutions rather than environmental problems is really, truly excellent. He argues that to save the natural landscape we need to work on keeping people in “people habitat” by creating compact urban areas that are efficient and desirable places to live, work, and play.
I liked this (short) TED talk from Dr. Nalini Nadkari, a faculty member of Evergreen State College who researches the role that canopy-dwelling plants play in forest ecosystems. Even if you just want to watch the first few minutes, it is worth it for the incredible shots of climbing a very, very tall strangler fig… More
Suspended pavement trenches with adequate amounts of soil are a great solution for growing healthy, mature street trees — downtown Charlotte and the Christian Science Center in Boston are just two examples of how fantastic the results can be. These two systems are 25 and 43 years old, respectively, and the trees look incredible. Still,… More
The Christian Science Center, on Huntington Ave between Mass Ave and Belvidere Street in Boston, is the oldest suspended pavement installation that we know of in the United States. These trees were planted in 1968, making them 43 years old.
In my last entry I talked about the three different types of bamboo. Many people may not know this, but the United States is home to a native species of temperate (running) bamboo called arundinarea gigantean (river cane). Because most of the U.S. has a cold winter, our native bamboo (running) grew from the gulf… More
A few weeks ago I was in a meeting with the chief of staff for a San Francisco supervisor. She mentioned that there are entire areas of the city — those that are predominantly Chinese and Chinese-American — where city tree planting is very limited due to cultural beliefs in feng shui. I’d heard the… More
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