While green roofs have been used for the past 30-40 years in Europe, the spread of green roof technology in North America is much more recent. Need for low impact stormwater management techniques is one of the biggest drivers for green roof technology in North America.
Sometimes, in order to bring new understanding to an issue and cut through the meaningful-but-sometimes-numbing-data, you need to reframe it. There are so many ways that big trees enhance life for people and other living things: air quality, safety, water quality, lower temperatures. These cross environmental, development, and design boundaries. All are fundamentally public health… More
In part 1 of this series, I summarized some of the lessons we learned from those people on the forefront of setting minimum soil volume policies. In today’s article, I will summarize how actual adopted soil volume policies compare to the minimum soil volumes trees need according to research studies.
Trees need an adequate volume of rootable, oxygen-rich soil to thrive, and minimum soil volume policies are a powerful tool for arborists and other advocates to leverage better growing conditions for trees, especially in urban areas. In preparation for Peter MacDonagh’s presentation at the 2012 ISA conference in Portland, OR, “Leveraging Healthy Urban Forests with… More
In 2011, CMG Landscape Architecture was approached by a tech company to design the courtyard of their new headquarters in Menlo Park, CA. The project was on a very fast track. In addition to the accelerated timeline, CMG’s proposed design for the site had the total impervious surface area increasing from 40 percent to 60… More
Okay, we know you have done a lot of work. You have analyzed your site and have picked the best tree species for your area, provided the trees with the optimal volume of planting soil, selected the best specimen from the nursery, and made sure it has arrived on-site in great condition. We think what… More
Today’s guest post is from Nathalie Shanstrom, a sustainable landscape architect with the Kestrel Design Group. It’s a little science-y, but still very readable. If you’re not a stormwater geek, don’t be deterred – there’s a lot of great information in here. -LM Parts 1 and 2 of this blog series looked at how plants… More
This is interesting – two studies I’ve read recently emphasize the very real value that the urban forest has for migrating birds.
Today’s guest post is from Nathalie Shanstrom, a sustainable landscape architect with the Kestrel Design Group. It’s a little science-y, but still very readable. If you’re not a stormwater geek, don’t be deterred – there’s a lot of great information in here. -LM This series of blogs examines how plants contribute to nutrient reduction in… More
Today’s guest post is from Nathalie Shanstrom, a sustainable landscape architect with the Kestrel Design Group. It’s a little science-y, but still very readable. If you’re not a stormwater geek, don’t be deterred – there’s a lot of great information in here. -LM While bioretention has been shown to be very effective for removing total… More
This post is written by Melinda Housholder and originally appeared on Loose Leaf, the blog of American Forests. Earlier this month, I attended a workshop in Davis, California, called “Urban Forests & Carbon Markets” that American Forests participated in and co-sponsored through a grant with the U.S. Forest Service’s Urban & Community Forestry Program. As California takes the lead to… More
We like to keep track of cities that are doing more for trees, specifically by implementing minimum soil volumes for urban planting. I’m happy to share that we are adding the city of Oakville, ON to the list, where they have recently implemented a requirement that street trees be planted in 30 m3 (1,059 ft3) of soil… More
Soil. Stormwater. Sustainable Infrastructure.
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