Another complaint we get is that when we plant trees, we only plant small trees which isn't equivalent to the ones we chop down. And it's like... the trees are small because they're younger. I promise if you go to the older parts of town you'll see that they do not stay small.
Do they... do they not realize that trees grow? That the act of them growing is what makes them establish root systems that prevent erosion? That them growing is what enables them to absorb carbon dioxide? The growing is what makes them useful!!! And as a fun bonus- young, healthy trees are far less likely to drop a branch on your head!
There's a lot of work that goes into these kinds of evaluations that I don't think people really understand. Like there's a lot of older trees in our uptown area and we love them very much, but they present a hazard to the man-made structures because they were planted with limited knowledge of how to keep them healthy while sharing space with brick.
Tree boss explained it to me once that the older trees have a black mold problem because they just kinda planted them. Because of this, they're root bound. Root bound trees get mold and rot. Sure enough- a big storm happened this summer and one of those trees that looked healthy on the outside came down, hit the roof of city hall, and you could see the decay inside.
There is a way to plant trees near streets and businesses so that the roots run under the structures and I think that he called it a 'root shelf.' But the people who planted those trees didn't have that knowledge, so we try to replace them with proper techniques when we have the opportunity.
But unfortunately, in order to do it properly for the health of the trees and the structures, we have to plant a sapling instead of an adult tree.
A lot of the time, I hear people talking about 'old growth trees' and how they can't stand to see us cutting them down. But the majority of these trees aren't old growth- they're maybe 50-75 years old and weren't planted with the future in mind. So sometimes we cut down an older tree that looks 'fine' from the outside, but the soil sucks or there's an infestation or the storm damage is worse than it looks from the outside.
I once saw Tree Boss just... push an adult tree down by leaning on it and the inside was fuckin' paper.
And its like... welcome to City Planning: where we fix the problems made 50 years ago by people who meant well.
