As many as half of newly-planted trees may die within a few years without early care – including regular watering and inspection. Later, periodic inspections will ensure healthy growth. This work will pay off as trees mature and deliver the benefits you anticipated when you began your initiative.
Managing urban forests requires more than just boots on the ground—it takes smart tools to track, plan, and care for thousands of trees across city streets, parks, schools, and neighborhoods. Fortunately, a variety of sophisticated computerized systems now exist to support tree inventory, risk assessments, work orders, and long-term planning.
Once you visited the resources below, continue on to the Getting Started section.
Not whether, but how
Volunteer tree planters, for example, may become forceful advocates for urban forestry and tree equity in their community.
But working with volunteers brings with it a distinct set of issues. Take a look at Leveraging Volunteer Resources to learn how you might organize monitoring and maintenance tasks and assure the quality of the data collected.
Staff and contractors are better positioned to perform monitoring and maintenance tasks that track long-term tree health and condition.
Professionals generally will identify pruning needs, pests and disease identification, specific maintenance needs and the availability and suitability of plantable space.
Consider how your choice might affect tree equity
Depending heavily on resident requests to schedule maintenance work leaves important work undone in less wealthy neighborhoods — deepening, not resolving tree equity burdens. A longterm commitment to tree equity requires regular, cyclical regular monitoring of trees in all neighborhoods.
The Nature Conservancy recently published Roots of Resilience, an in-depth analysis of the causes and cures of tree inequity. The lessons here focus on arid communities but can be applied broadly.
Canadian and USDA Forest Service researchers recently published a review of US urban forest management plans, Where is Environmental Justice? The study affirms the importance of regular maintenance as a condition of tree equity.