Over the last several years, DeepRoot has written about reusing urban soils as a planting medium. To date, the following have been covered via the DeepRoot blog: Reusing Existing Urban Soil for Planting Urban Soil Assessment and Reuse: Part 1 and Part 2 Search for the “Perfect” Soil Specification The articles above create a basis… More
In Part One of this blog we set the stage to select quality trees by starting with a good specification, working within the normal project submittal process, and resetting our expectation of what constitutes a good quality tree. The requirements for inspecting the parts of the tree aboveground were reviewed. For the inspection of the… More
Many trees purchased from nurseries may have significant defects that can reduce the useful life of the tree. This isn’t just speculation; there is good evidence that large segments of the nursery industry are supplying defective plants. Brian Kane at the Urban Tree Foundation and Ed Gilman at the University of Florida, both respected researchers… More
This post is the third in a series of three sharing findings from research conducted on 10 Silva Cell projects across North America. Read part one about study design here and part two about our initial findings here. We’ve already shared some of the initial findings from this study in earlier posts. Today, we’ll discuss… More
This post is the second in a series of three sharing findings from research conducted on 10 Silva Cell projects across North America. Read part one, where we discuss the study design, data collection, and raw growth results, here. After designing the study and selecting the Silva Cell projects, we had to decide what performance… More
In order to document the growth and performance of trees in Silva Cells, and to validate our own approach to designing for both trees alone and trees-and-stormwater in combination, in 2015 we undertook a research and monitoring study of 10 Silva Cell projects across North America. This was a big project, as you might imagine…. More
This is the second of a two-part series about urban soil assessment and reuse. Read part 1 here. While the types of questions one might ask about urban soils are somewhat similar to the questions an agricultural soil scientist might ask about farm soils, the methods to get information is dramatically different. Urban soils are… More
A critical part of any landscape architect’s training is to learn how to understand the site conditions before starting the design. There is likely nothing more important than soil to the success of anything placed on it or planted into it. Urban sites, and thus urban soil, make up a large part of the work… More
Imported soil specifications have evolved over the last 30 years to become quite specific about products. Frequently, they appear to be iron-clad descriptions of the most optimum soil; many specification writers would like us to think that even minor deviations from these documents will result in horticultural disasters. But “standard” specifications are not one-size-fits-all. Many… More
Landscape architects, architects, and engineers have many tools available to them in the design of healthy long-lived trees, and no single one of them can guarantee the establishment or long-term success of the trees. These tools need to be applied within a larger understanding of general principles of arboriculture, soil, and urban conditions in order… More
Most urban sites have some amount of mineral soil in place when the time comes to install plant material, yet these soils are often assumed – erroneously – to be unsuitable. Historically there have been two approaches to this situation. The default option is to ignore the problem, or make minor modifications such as digging… More
I recently presented a webinar where I discussed three high-impact design decisions that affect long-term tree performance: tree spacing, sizing the tree opening, and water harvesting into soil below paving. Attendees asked a lot of good questions, and by far the most asked one had to do with the use of tree grates. As anyone… More
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