Imagine you own a small vacant plot, less than a quarter acre, in a quiet residential neighborhood. Its slope and wedge shape makes it less than ideal for development, but it is not serving any purpose sitting vacant behind a fence. It gets plenty of sun exposure, has a nutrient-rich clay soil and is located… More
Thanks to widespread efforts to raise awareness of the large declines in bee and Monarch butterfly populations, most people are aware of the need to protect pollinators. Monarch butterfly populations have declined 90% in the last 20 years. Bees and other pollinators are in trouble too. Primary causes of the drastic declines in pollinator populations… More
We are all searching for signs in our lives. Which way do I go on this highway? Where should I live? Where should I work? We take internet quizzes to tell us what career we should have and what kind of dog we would be and in what country we were meant to live. We look… More
One of the questions I am most frequently asked is, “How often do you root prune?” This is a tricky question and one for which I wished there were a more clear cut answer. First let’s dispel a myth. Ready? Ok, here it is. We do NOT root prune every tree in the nursery. (Take… More
You’ve done your site analysis and ensured enough rooting volume for the tree. You spent time carefully selecting the right species and cultivar. You’ve even inspected nursery stock and rejected specimens with uncorrectable root defects. In other words, you tried to do everything right. Yet six months later, the trees don’t look so good. What… More
This article tells the story in words and pictures about the evolution of a sidewalk on a single block in San Francisco. The 20th Street Biophilic Landscape is on 20th Street between Alabama and Florida Streets. This block is a flat area that was on the edge of or part of a tidal marsh. In… More
Last year, Jim Urban wrote a post for this blog entitled Against Mulch. The principle reasons he cited for his position were: 1) Mulch floats and can clog drains and releases “lots of phosphorus” as it breaks down, and 2) work by Gilman et al. that suggest that mulch does not reduce evapo-transpiration. We discussed… More
My blog, The Garden Professors, has an ongoing and lively discussion about invasive plants. Let me state up front that none of the Garden Professors is promoting invasive plants. But the issues surrounding invasive plants are extremely complex and have profound implications for many groups with whom we work in landscape horticulture and urban and… More
Nature vs. nurture is an old debate in human psychology: are we the way we are because of our genetics or our environment? Plant people know that both environment and genetics play a role in plant development. Perhaps one of the most dramatic examples can be found in the Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia) in… More
We love trees. We also love woodies. For those of you who have been reading this blog for a while, you will know that we promote large volumes of non-compacted, biologically active loam as essential for street tree health and longevity. There are other plants which require soil volume and need attention as well. Vines,… More
You know how when you learn something in school, it sounds a little abstract until you actually see it? For example, I remember learning about what stomata are. Here is the definition according to Wikipedia: In botany, a stoma (plural stomata) (occasionally called a stomate, plural stomates)[1] (from Greekστόμα, “mouth”[2]) is a pore, found in the epidermis of leaves, stems and… More
While “summer reading” may conjure up frivolous beach novels that you don’t mind getting wet or sandy, may I recommend something both entertaining and informative this summer. The Dandelion Hunter: Foraging the Urban Wilderness by Rebecca Lerner is a combination memoir/essay about urban foraging, or the art of finding food and medicine in the plants… More
Soil. Stormwater. Sustainable Infrastructure.
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