For the last two weeks of December I’ll be reprinting some of our favorite blog posts instead of putting up new ones. These will be on those evergreen topics that we can always revisit and apply to current projects. As this year winds down, hopefully some of these will be helpful as you plan for… More
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
All areas of study and their industries have to cope with inaccurate but often widely accepted mythologies, and arboriculture is no exception. There are a few of these that we encounter again and again. We’ve already busted the myth that tree roots don’t grow very deep, but here’s another one: do deep soils increase the risk… More
In February, the U.S. Forest Service published a report indicating that cities around the country are losing around 4 million trees per year. Of the 20 cities included in the study, 17 showed significant losses of canopy cover, and 16 showed significant increases in impervious hardscape (or paved surfaces that don’t absorb water). At the same time,… More
This post is now out of date! Please see the updated post here. In the day-to-day, we can become so focused on what isn’t working with the way we design and plant street trees that it can be difficult to focus on the people and places that are actually doing right by them. It’s just so… More
As an urban trees and soils consultant, I am always looking for studies that examine how trees survive and adapt to the built environment. One of the biggest questions and confusions I encounter is the issue of whether organic matter (something that I discussed in a previous post) needs to be added to urban… More
You don’t need much experience in arboriculture or landscape design to notice that planting trees in cities is very different from planting trees in forest environments. There are many reasons for this, but perhaps the biggest is the difference in composition of the soil.
This hydrograph (diagram showing runoff flow versus time) compares the intense spike of a stream during a storm in an urbanized watershed without adequate controls, with the “gentle rolling hill” appearance of a forested watershed’s response to the same storm. Note the loss of dry weather base flow for the stream in the urbanized watershed…. More
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.
Soil. Stormwater. Sustainable Infrastructure.
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