A couple of weeks ago my brother sent me a link to a story on WNYC about the variable mortality rates for trees that were planted as part of New York City’s Million Trees initiative. We’ve seen the uneven outcomes of planting efforts like these before, and New York is no exception. Dedicated (volunteer) citizens who water… More
Recognizing the many benefits trees provide, more and more jurisdictions are providing incentives to both preserve existing trees and plant new trees. Examples of such incentives include grants, tax rebates, development incentives, stormwater fee discounts, and stormwater credits. Today I’ll be focusing on stormwater credits for trees, particularly stormwater credits applicable to individual trees on… More
Last year, The Kestrel Design Group developed a formula for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to estimate evapotranspiration benefits from trees to include in their stormwater crediting system. This formula is one of the first – or possibly the first – in the country to formally quantify this benefit. I spoke to Nathalie Shanstrom, a landscape architect… More
A large-canopy tree is a very beautiful thing. On this, most people will agree. But is not only beautiful—it also benefits its community. It provides shade and shelter, protects air quality, and reduces air temperatures, water runoff, and human stress. A street lined with such trees is a desirable place to live and work, and… More
I spent a good part of last winter completing a literature review on bioretention media for a revision to the Minnesota Stormwater Manual. So when I attended the Low Impact Development (LID) conference in St. Paul, MN earlier this month, I was very interested to learn of a recent specification coming out of New Zealand:… More
In July, this blog posted about the disagreement among citizens in Portland, OR over proposed changes to their urban tree ordinances. At its heart, the conflict in Portland seems to center on whether the city government should have jurisdiction over privately owned trees. The majority of the commenters on the article felt that the city’s… More
This post is now out of date! Please see the updated post here. 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… 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
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
New York has an ambitious Green Infrastructure plan, and lately their enhanced bioswales have gotten additional attention. These five foot by twenty foot planters look great from street level, so why do I feel uneasy about them?
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
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