Urban Trees: A Guide for Selection, Maintenance and Master Planning

The key to a successful urban forestry program in the 1990s is the municipal street tree master plan - a comprehensive review of a city and its trees, forestry department, and citizens. In this easy-to-follow, fact-filled book, you'll learn the A to Z of preparing a street tree master plan - with precise guidelines for cataloging existing trees, selecting the right trees for future planting, maintaining urban trees, and working with the municipal laws and regulations that govern city streets and parks.
Using informative case studies and illustrations, a master landscape architect and horticulturist documents his step-by-step approach to:
Taking the critical street tree inventory - with the newest methodologies for counting, describing, and disseminating street tree data;
Choosing the best trees for your climate and site using the diversification formula established by the International Society of Arboriculture, and the author's own recommendations for the 50 best trees for urban environments;
Implementing an effective, cost-saving program of general tree maintenance - with detailed tips on pruning, roots, pest management, and leaf and wood disposal;
Administration techniques - how to evaluate municipal forestry departments, tree care equipment, and the laws and regulations that protect trees; and
Public relations and citizens awareness groups - with a multitude of proven strategies for promoting tree care and volunteerism, from "Adopt-a-Tree" to cable TV and the local press.
Plus, easy-to-use appendices round out your knowledge by providing botanical descriptions and illustrations of each recommended street tree, charts of the species that have been successfully planted in different U.S. and Canadian cities, and comparisons of the services and budgets of various municipal forestry departments.
Regardless of how you use Urban Trees - as a detailed roadmap to creating a street tree master plan, as a quick reference of planting and pruning techniques, or as a how-to guide on selecting the right trees for your community - it is your complete professional guide. Landscape architects and contractors, urban foresters, municipal administrators, and students will find it packed with facts and data that greatly increase their knowledge of every aspect of urban tree care.