COMMUNITY TREE SELECTION

     

    What is it?

    • Community tree selection means choosing public trees for superior performances under urban conditions AND particular planting sites and purposes.
    • Other reasons for choosing treesbeauty, cost, local availability, tradition, etc--are secondary to these two primary criteria when choosing street trees.

     

    Why does it matter?

    • By choosing trees on the basis of known performance on particular planting sites, planners can create a better urban forest by minimizing forseeable problems.
    • Time-consuming, expensive, and dangerous difficulties routinely arise when species are planted that will not perform well.
    • Examples of bad community choices might be:
    a drought intolerant species like horse chestnut for a dry site planting only a few common species such as norway maple and green ash.
    an acid-loving species such as pin oak for an alkaline site a weak-branched species such as Bradford pear for a site with ice storms
    a large, rapid-growing species such as silver maple for a site beneath wires a species subject to debilitating disease such as flowering dogwood

     

    What are the best trees to choose?

    • No "best trees" can be identified without first knowing the purpose of the planting and the nature of the planting site.
    • The best trees will be those that will satisfy a particular goal (shade, screen, ornament, species diversity, etc.) on a specific site with the fewest long-term problems.
    • Some combinations of goal and site will allow only a few optimal tree choices, while others will permit a large number of possibilities.
    • Analyzing a planting site (for drainage, pH, etc.) will be the topic of a later factsheet.

     

    How much trouble is it, and what does it cost?

    • Careful tree selection takes more effort in the short run, but in the long run it takes much less effort and costs much less.
    • Once you know what you are looking for, try local sources first. They may not carry the species or cultivar you want, but the consumer pressure is good for them in any case.
    • You will probably end up having some of your trees shipped from a non-local source, or picking them up yourself. For availability and quality, order 6 months before you plant.
    • A later factsheet will examine specifying and selecting good trees for street use.

     

    Where can I get more information?

    • "Recommended Urban Trees" (Nina Bassuk, Cornell University), available from the Community Forestry Education Project at Cornell Cooperative Extension--Monroe County (716-461-1000), along with a list of regional sources and other information.