by TRC_Admin | Mar 2, 2023 | Trees
“Miami-Dade County Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces Department is partnering with One Tree Planted, a reforestation nonprofit, to plant more than 450 trees at Amelia Earhart Park in 2023. The plantings, led by Neat Streets Miami-Dade’s Million Trees initiative, will be achieved in three phases to increase tree canopy in some of Miami-Dade County’s neighborhoods with the highest need.
‘With the support of wonderful partners like One Tree Planted, Miami-Dade County is progressing to achieve its mission of a 30 percent minimum tree canopy countywide, prioritizing tree equity in our most vulnerable communities,’ said County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. ‘Investing in our urban forest is a crucial component of our county’s recently launched Extreme Heat Action Plan and overall resilience goals.’
‘The 2020 Miami-Dade County Urban Tree Canopy Assessment shined a spotlight on our lowest tree canopy neighborhoods, allowing us to maximize our efforts by planting trees in areas with the greatest tree canopy disparities,’ said Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins, Chair of Neat Streets Miami-Dade. ‘This project is a perfect example of how we’re utilizing the Assessment to enhance quality of life for all residents by increasing environmental justice, improving air quality, reducing urban heat island effect, and mitigating flooding through tree plantings.’
Amelia Earhart Park is a 515-acre park which sits within the boundaries of multiple neighborhoods that contain some of Miami-Dade County’s lowest existing urban tree canopy percentages, some as low as 7.4 percent. Trees planted as part of this project aim to increase the urban tree canopy of these areas, which can improve both environmental and human health benefits for residents…”
— Newsrelease, Community Newspapers
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by TRC_Admin | Mar 2, 2023 | Trees
Photo: Dirk Shadd, Tampa Bay Times
“The hot pink petals caught in the breeze over Coffee Pot Bayou, fluttering like snowflakes onto a lawn dotted with admirers. After all, it’s a great place to snap a pretty picture.
Over the last week and a half, a steady stream of people have made the annual pilgrimage to the giant pink trumpet tree at the corner of Coffee Pot Boulevard NE and 23rd Ave. NE, cell phones and tripods in hand. Cyclists and dog walkers pulled off the winding path that runs along the water. Cars and joggers took turns pausing in the middle of the brick boulevard to gawk.
For some, a selfie from across the street was plenty — the long grey branches extend tall and wide, like the two-story palace perched behind the tree. Others got face-to-face with the trunk, stepping onto a lawn blanketed with flecks of flower heads. The bold ones flopped right onto the grass.
The pink trumpet tree, perhaps Historic Old Northeast’s most famous plant, is in full bloom. Also known as the Tabebuia tree (pronounced ta-buh-BOO-ya, as in Tabebuia heterophylla), this plant has attracted its own fan club for decades.
But this year, neighbors have noticed more of a frenzy than ever. The theory is an increase in social media presence (hello, bloggers and influencers) has inspired a new generation of onlookers. Linda and Bob Dobbs moved into the century-old house behind the tree on the night of Valentine’s Day 2003. Stepping outside the next morning for a cup of coffee, they encountered the rosy petals for the first time. Nature’s housewarming present…
“It was a mystery,” Linda Dobbs said. “We’d moved from New Jersey, where it was sleet and snow. We were thinking that was paradise just to come outside in February. But to see that, that was like, ‘Oh my!’”
Based on old photos of the house and a chat with someone who grew up in the area, the couple estimate the tree’s current age to be between 80 and 90 years. Over the 16 years they lived in the house, the bloom became the highlight of their year.
Linda Dobbs brought one to Sunken Gardens, where she has volunteered for years. The couple donated another to the city, asking it to be planted at Crescent Lake Park. Over the years, hurricanes knocked down both.
Dobbs, a retired journalist, said she wrote her Northeast Journal piece to make her case for more Tabebuias around town.
“I just thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had a whole line of them, and people could come from all over?” she said. “Forget the cherry blossom festival in D.C. You could come to Tabebuia festival in St. Petersburg in February! But they never took me up on it.”
The Dobbses, now in their 70s, downsized to a one-story house in 2019. They christened their yard with a sapling from the Tabebuia. A young tree can take six to eight years to grow flowers. Last year, a few emerged.
They’re still waiting for this year’s bloom…”
— Gabrielle Calise, Tampa Bay Times
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by TRC_Admin | Mar 2, 2023 | Trees
Photo: From article on CaseyTrees.org
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, regional and national trends showed a sharp increase in vehicle-related fatalities – so much so that 2021 was the deadliest year on D.C. roads in over a decade. Since 2015, D.C. has participated in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Mayor’s Challenge for Safer People and Safer Streets, resulting in Mayor Bowser’s Vision Zero DC plan – which aims to reduce roadway injuries and achieve zero traffic deaths by next year (2024).
When used in concert with other solutions that reduce injuries and deaths on our roadways, trees can help make city streets safer – and D.C.’s Vision Zero a reality – through traffic calming.
Traffic calming is the use of mainly physical measures (speed bumps, horizontal shifts, roadway narrowing, etc.) that reduce the negative effects of motor vehicle use, alter driver behavior, and improve conditions for pedestrians and cyclists. And among the methods to calm and control city traffic, the addition of trees to a city street has been proven to slow traffic, reduce accidents, and create safer streets for all – for those who walk, bike, drive, ride transit, exercise, play, dine, or any of the many other activities that take place on or near our streets.
Studies have shown that when a street is lined with trees, they act as a visual barrier between drivers and pedestrians. A study from 2019 found that a higher urban tree cover is associated with increased feelings of safety. The study states:’“High coverage and dispersion of trees are needed for increased perceived safety.’
The amazing thing is that areas with street trees not only feel safer, but they’ve been proven to be safer. Trees have been shown to calm traffic and reduce vehicle speeds by appearing to narrow the width of the roadway. Without trees, the open space gives drivers the illusion that they have more control to drive faster – when in reality, that’s exactly how accidents occur. Reminder: If a street looks like a highway, people will treat it like a highway. In an area where streets were widened and trees were not present, accidents increased by almost 500% within an 8-year period.
Another unexpected benefit of using street trees for traffic calming is that drivers feel more relaxed in the presence of trees. This has shown to result in less road rage and accidents caused by frustration. Unlike other traffic calming devices, trees are multi-faceted – not only do they help make roads safer, but they also save energy, increase property value, reduce stormwater runoff, and generally make our lives more comfortable and beautiful!”
— Christina Hester, Casey Trees
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by TRC_Admin | Mar 2, 2023 | Trees
Andrew Koeser, UF/IFAS associate professor of environmental horticulture and a co-author of the study, conducts urban tree research. Photo: Deb Hilbert
“When cities are dominated by only a few species, new infestations of pests and diseases from overseas can just move through with dramatic results,’ said Andrew Koeser, a UF/IFAS associate professor of environmental horticulture.
A diverse canopy is important everywhere, but particularly in Florida, where about 90% of the state’s 21.7 million residents live in cities. Urban dwellers need trees for shade, oxygen, and more.
In addition to the benefits humans derive from trees, canopy diversity can make urban areas better habitats for wildlife like birds, pollinators or butterflies, said Koeser, co-author of a new study that examines factors that impede tree diversity.
Deborah Hilbert, a doctoral graduate of the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences who studied under Koeser’s supervision, led the study.
Researchers conducted focus groups with tree producers, landscape architects and municipal arborists around Florida.
Tree growers cited market demand, sales and other business-related production issues as impediments to offering a more diverse selection of trees. Landscape architects and city tree professionals mentioned ordinances and setback rules.
Many urban streets and residential areas are lined with a single type of tree – which can look beautiful, but the practice runs counter to ensuring a longer-living canopy.
‘Some people love the look of uniform street plantings, and professionals design these to meet that need,’ said Koeser, a faculty member at the UF/IFAS Gulf Coast Research and Education Center in Hillsborough County. ‘The problem is math.’
For example, if you have one or two tree species in your neighborhood, and a noxious pest comes in that that can kill that type of tree, it will likely kill 50% to 100% of those trees…
As potential solutions, several professionals from the focus groups suggested educating policymakers about tree species diversity, how it relates to climate change and the threat of devastating diseases and pests.
‘Some types of trees will do better than others in harsher climates,’ Hilbert said. ‘We don’t know yet which trees will thrive in the future, so planting a variety increases the chances that at least some of them will still be around in the next 30-plus years….'”
— Brad Buck, The Free Press
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by TRC_Admin | Mar 2, 2023 | Codes, Controversial, Trees, Uncategorized
Photo: Denise Buttacavoli
“The Clearwater City Council put a hold on its city tree ordinance after 4,000 healthy trees were tagged for removal.”
“When Denise Buttacavoli left for work that morning, her front yard was fully shaded. When she returned home, she discovered that the city had cut down every tree in her front yard.
Patricia Kirby, a 20-year resident of Clearwater, confessed that she broke into tears when she returned home from work and saw the condition of her neighbor’s yard.
That morning, Denise Buttacavoli’s front yard at 1660 Magnolia Ave. was filled with mature, healthy camphor trees that provided a canopy of shade and sheltered a host of wild critters.
When Kirby returned home that night, she said Buttacavoli’s yard was a barren wasteland. Every shade tree in the yard had been cut down by city of Clearwater tree service contractors.
A former federal park ranger, federal forest ranger and an independent contractor for the Environmental Protection Agency for more than 20 years, Kirby said she’s spent her career trying to protect the environment and the wildlife that call it home.
‘This kind of thing hurts my heart,’ she said.
Kirby displayed before and after photos of Buttacavoli’s front yard on the overhead screen at the Clearwater City Council meeting Thursday night.
There was an audible gasp from the audience when Kirby showed the photo of Buttacavoli’s yard after the trees had been cut down…
She said the problem with the city’s tree ordinance, as outlined by Dan Mirabile, director of the city’s public works department, at Tuesday’s city council work session is that the ordinance doesn’t take a tree’s health into consideration.
Mirabile said the city is divided into five zones and each zone is inventoried every six years by an arborist at a cost of $30,000 a year.
This year the arborist tagged 4,000 of the 20,000 trees in that zone for removal using a rating system from 0 to 6.
He said trees are rated based on their species, diameter, health, whether power lines are overhead and whether they’re home to nesting birds and other wildlife.
Under that rating system, said Mirabile, if a tree is rated a 3 or below, it is subject to removal. As a result, he told council members, the city has needlessly cut down healthy trees.
‘I lost 100 percent (of trees) — 100 percent of the natural beauty, 100 percent of the wildlife connection, 100 percent shade and comfort and 100 percent of the joy,’ Buccavoli said.
She urged the city to amend its tree ordinance and ‘model your new policy after a city who’s doing the right thing.’
At the very least, said Kim Begay, vice president of the Clearwater Audubon Society, property owners should be notified in writing before the city cuts down a tree on right of way in front of their property so the residents can challenge the decision to cut it down…
Clearwater Mayor Frank Hibbard said the council already agreed following the work session to put a hold on enforcing the tree ordinance until it can be reviewed.
‘We have completely stopped the program and are going to reexamine it,’ he said.”
— D’Ann Lawrence White, Patch
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by TRC_Admin | Feb 10, 2023 | Trees
Photo: Times Files
Tree advocates and builders reached what was called a historic compromise on protecting the city’s award-winning tree canopy in the spring of 2019. A week later, a new state law gutted much of Tampa’s and other local governments’ power to set rules about tree removals.
At the time, exasperated city officials and advocates raised concerns about the law’s provisions allowing grand trees to be cut down as long as a certified arborist or landscape architect signed off, cutting city inspectors out of the process. Some large-scale removals that summer ratcheted up their fears.
Nearly three years later the city hopes to figure out if those fears were justified.
Brian Knox, the city’s senior forester examiner, says an upcoming analysis of the city’s canopy is planned for release in 2022. A similar analysis in 2016 found 32 percent of the city covered by tree canopy.
And while the data isn’t in yet, Knox has a pretty good idea what it will say.
“I expect we will see a decline in the canopy,” Knox said.
It’s not just the state law, he said. Tampa’s hot development streak has also taken a toll as new houses or commercial developments often require the removal of mature shade trees. Although they’re often replaced with younger trees (developers can also pay into a city tree-planting fund as an alternative), it can often take at least a decade for the canopy to be replenished.
Still, the state’s preemption of the city’s tree code, in place since the early 1970s, has likely had an effect, Knox said. How much of one is hard to know since the law has no provision for a property owner to inform the city if trees are removed because they’re deemed dangerous to persons or property.
“We really don’t have a way to monitor the information. We can’t really factor the trees that are removed in our decision making,” Knox said. “That’s the part that makes it difficult.”…
Want to find a certified arborist and other tree-related resources? Knox suggests these websites: www.treesaregood.org and www.tampa.gov/construction-services/tree-information.
Charlie Frago, Times staff
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