Posts about Casey Trees

About 20 volunteers from around the region came out to plant a mix of swamp white oak, sweetgum and redbud trees along Seminary Road, Columbia Boulevard, and in Public Parking Lot 12, located at the corner of the two streets. Volunteers were given a demonstration on tool safety and planting before setting out with saplings and shovels.

Conservation Montgomery drew up plans for where each tree would go, working with a county arborist to avoid underground utilities, overhead wires and other barriers. They also consulted with neighbors. "We moved one [proposed] tree because it would create too much shade in one gentleman's garden," said Arlene Bruhn, who sits on Conservation Montgomery's board of directors.

Jim Woodworth, director of tree planting for Casey Trees, noted the "traffic calming benefits" of street trees, which will not only look good and provide shade but encourage drivers to slow down. The planting site is less than half a mile from the Georgia Avenue/Capital Beltway interchange, one of the state's busiest intersections. Studies also show that one street tree can result in over $90,000 in direct benefits, ranging from increased property values to less air pollution.

Visiting Casey Trees and Conservation Montgomery's tree planting in Montgomery Hills reminded me of a tree I planted myself a few blocks away. As a first-grader on the Woodlin Elementary School student council, I participated in the planting of this tree on the school grounds in 1993. I was surprised to find it's still there, though it could probably use a little pruning, as it's gotten very scraggly.

Casey Trees will hold additional community tree plantings through December, though there aren't any more scheduled in Montgomery County. You can learn more about them and their volunteer opportunities by visiting their website. You can also visit Conservation Montgomery's website to learn more about their organization as well.

The Pennsylvania Avenue parklet was the most active in town, with a stream of events throughout the day. The programming kicked off with yoga and a storytelling session for families with members of the DC Public Library. Later in the day, Common Good City Farm hosted a fruit pie demonstration. Between events, visitors had plenty of opportunities to sit back and enjoy the spacious grass and seating.

Casey Trees participated in Park(ing) Day for the second consecutive year, this time occupying three spaces at 12th and G Streets NW, near Metro Center.

"[Last year] at Dupont Circle, it was a little easier for people already to see an urban landscape, but down here there are almost no trees," spokesman Christopher Horn told The Washington Post. "We've definitely had more people stop this year and ask, 'what's this?'"

Casey Trees brought shade trees from its farm in Berryville, Va., as well as a wide variety of plants, many of which were available for sale. Their park also featured picnic tables, a bean bag toss, and complimentary iced tea and lemonade, which visitors appreciated during the hottest part of the day.

In Rosslyn, Artisphere hosted two Park(ing) Day spaces, in conjunction with their Beyond the Parking Lot exhibit that is on display until November 4. The small park made the most of its size with a various plants, a small table, and chairs.

Artisphere's space included the must-see attraction of the Park(ing) Day: a giant shopping cart that that was an oversized piece of art and a donation bin for the Arlington Street People's Assistance Network (A-SPAN). A-SPAN encouraged passersby to drop gently used professional clothing into the cart to help with its homeless job placement programs.

Another parklet in Arlington, outside of Courthouse Metro station rounded out the Park(ing) Day festivities in the area. Visitors to this parklet were entertain in high style, with white tablecloths topping tables set in the repurposed parking spaces and surrounded by plants.

Even though Park(ing) Day is just one day each year, it's a lasting reminder of the tradeoffs we make with our public space.

Good permanent parks also include healthy trees, and tree advocacy group Casey Trees is organizing a temporary park at 12th and G Streets, by Metro Center, from 8 am to 6 pm. They will turn 3 parking spaces, or 660 square feet, into a park with 15 trees from their farm in Berryville, Virginia, along with shrubs, grass and sod. The park's seating will let people eat lunch and play games.

Arlington's Artisphere is organizing a park in Rosslyn from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm in front of its arts center, at 1101 Wilson Boulevard. Design studio Apartment Zero is designing the park, and Dance Exchange will do a performance from 5-6:30.

The Artisphere event matches up with an exhibition they have going on right now, Beyond the Parking Lot, which looks at how our car infrastructure has transformed the landscape, and the long-term scars it leaves behind. The exhibit is free and runs until November 4.

All of these parks come from established organizations, but the sprit of Park(ing) Day is for everyone. In many cities, individual citizens feed the meter at a parking space and roll out their own artificial turf and a bench. In fact, that's exactly what the original Park(ing) Day was, a performance art project in San Francisco. Will we have any of those here?

If you get any good photographs of Park(ing) Day installations, whether official or guerrilla, in the Washington area, please add them to the Greater and Lesser Washington Flickr Pool!

On a recent weekend, I counted only four trees, or 6% of the total from this project, that remain alive. Weeds choke the treeboxes that line the street (save two in front of the Lowest Price Gas Station, where the trees are still dead), all of them neglected. That's unacceptable.

A new section of the Metropolitan Branch Trail recently opened between the New York Avenue Metro Station and Franklin Street NE. Trees were planted along the trail at many points, including the pocket park pictured at 4th and S Streets NE. Many of the trees are already dead due to the extremely dry spell we had in June and early July.

All of that is unfortunate, and easily could have been prevented, had the property owners and neighbors along the Met Branch Trail and Brentwood Road taken the time to water the nearby trees, or if the city had planned to water the trees in the North Capitol Street median, as the road there is practically a freeway where watering would be difficult. But there is hope ahead!

The city is actively working on a streetscape plan for the entire length of Sherman Avenue NW, between New Hampshire and Florida Avenues. One of the elements of this reconstruction will be a planted median. After seeing what happened on roads like North Capitol Street, it's reasonable to see why residents might be skeptical that trees could survive without a dedicated source of water to keep them alive.

Thankfully, Sherman Avenue resident Craig Sallinger was able to get a guarantee from a DDOT employee that an irrigation system will be included in the construction of the road, so it will be easy to get water to those trees while they're trying to establish roots. Hopefully this will be a consideration DDOT makes in all of their future streetscape programs.

In the August 4th edition of the Dupont Current, there is a story about the DC "Tree Fund." The fund is partially filled by fees levied as part of the Urban Forest Preservation Act of 2002, and is legally required to be kept separate from the city's general fund. (I wish I could link directly to the story, but the Current has a strong dislike of Internet publishing.)

The Current says that the 2011 budget, proposed by the Mayor and approved by the Council, removes money from the fund and places it in the city's general fund. In the article, Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) states she wasn't aware that the money was being diverted from the Tree Fund into the general fund when she voted for the budget.

The government agency tasked with planting and maintaining street trees in DC is the Urban Forestry Administration (UFA), which is part of the District Department of Transportation (DDOT). I recently had the opportunity to speak with John P. Thomas, the Urban Forestry Administration's Chief Forester, about some details of the city's street tree planting and maintenance program.

DDOT's yearly street tree budget is $7.5 million. As John Kelly noted on Sunday, the city is not responsible for watering trees once they are planted (contractors plant most of the street trees in the city). Mr. Thomas said that watering will be a line item in the planting contract this coming year. It will most likely mean that the city will not be able to plant as many trees as they have in years past, but I see that as a net positive for the DC.

Spending money on in-ground watering systems and paying more individuals (be they UFA contractors or students employed during the summer) will inevitably take money away from actual tree planting. I think that's a good thing.

I'm not saying I want fewer trees. I want more! But I want them to be mature and healthy, not first-year seedlings, struggling to stay alive.

DDOT's current planting process doesn't work, through no fault of their own. Mr. Thomas noted that 95% of what they plant comes from resident requests for trees in front of their house. A program called "Canopy Keepers" exists to encourage residents to water the young trees on their street. Some of my friends here in Trinidad are participating in this program. Walking around the city, though, you can easily see that many residents are not holding up their end of the bargain. The UFA staff does an admirable job with limited resources, but I believe it would be better to help young trees mature instead of wasting those resources replacing trees year after year.

You can only count on the kindness of strangers to a certain point. Eventually, money talks, and it can also water trees.

Cross-posted at The District Curmudgeon.