It’s not unusual to find a piece of art or jewelry over 500 years old in a museum’s collection. These precious artifacts are (rightly) treated with great care commensurate with their value. Yet an inch of topsoil, which may have taken more than 500 years to develop, is commonly abused, mismanaged or discarded in the… 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
Meticulously designed around the needs of patients and their families, the William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, is a state of the art facility. Through innovative planning that was five years in the making, patients’ needs are met outside, on the hospital grounds, as much… More
I’ve always wondered why we use the word parking to describe a place to leave a car. The word evokes images of my neighborhood park, playgrounds, or Central Park: lush green spaces not places easily reconciled with a patch of asphalt. A few years ago while I was working at the New York City Department… More
In March we hosted a webinar where Jonathan Page, an engineer working in Dr. Bill Hunt’s lab at North Carolina State University (NCSU), provided a stormwater engineering perspective on the design principles, treatment processes, and implementation of using Silva Cells as a stormwater control measure. Current research findings and a design case study were included in… More
What’s happening in Texas? As far as we can tell, a lot. The Lone Star state is making some huge investments in sustainable development, including green infrastructure. L. Peter MacDonagh, FASLA – who has visited the state many times over the years, and twice in the last few months to speak about using trees and soils… More
Located at the base of the Rocky Mountain foothills and home to the main campus of the University of Colorado, the City of Boulder is a vibrant town with a long history of smart growth, citizen driven investment in public spaces, and alternative transportation such as bike lanes and pedestrian-only thoroughfares. In recent years a… More
In February I had the opportunity to speak with David Dockter, an arborist with the Department of Planning and Community Environment and Public Works in the city of Palo Alto, CA. As someone expert in trees who works within the building permit and planning department role. Dave has a unique perspective on working with developers… More
Humans have been managing plants for thousands of years – watering, saving seeds, protecting plants from herbivores. We began learning about horticulture initially through observation. Some of our observations were correct, such as which plants needed lots of sun and which could grow in the shade. Others, such as adding sugar to the soil for… More
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) together with the Environmental and Water Resources Institute (EWRI) host one of the best research-driven conferences we’ve been to about low-impact development, held last month in Houston, TX. Today, L. Peter MacDonagh, FASLA – who spoke at the conference about using trees and soils for stormwater management – will share his Top… 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
We’ve all taken shelter under a tree’s canopy during a storm, grateful for its ability to intercept rain. You may not realize this, but rainwater that passes through tree canopies is modified both volumetrically and chemically in processes that have been relatively well studied in forests. That modification, which encompasses several different components, is what… More
Soil. Stormwater. Sustainable Infrastructure.
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