During the Heat Wave, Don't Forget to Think of the Trees

We planted two plane trees this year along Mass Ave (thanks TFCH) and three Crape Myrtles (thanks again TFCH) in a neglected triangle park that the neighbors mow, rake, weed and trim (DC let the grass get three feet high a few years ago). It's been a pain dragging 100 feet of hose out to the tree gators all summer long, every week, to give these new trees their 25 gallons weekly, but its also been WONDERFUL talking to strangers, meeting neighbors, etc. while standing there holding the hose filling those bags. The encouragement, thanks, and goodwill I've received is heartening. It really makes you feel like your helping knit the neighborhood together a little bit more. I highly recommend more people get into the habit of doing something for free that's for everyone to enjoy. I watch all those stressed Marylanders in their SUV's driving home every afternoon to some suburban stripmall wasteland while I water the trees and enjoy my city a little bit more!

Screw the trees.  Look what they did to Michael Kennedy and Sonny Bono.

Sonny had it coming.

homeless people could be chained to individual trees, and their waste products would keep the trees fertilized and watered. each tree gets its own, vocal advocate, and someone to talk to 

 Oh, I saw that movie but it also involved a block of wood, crushing balls and FEET!

I honestly think the trees will be alright. Their roots should be able to reach the water table just fine - unless I am mistaken. 

 sorry, jk, you're mistaken. when it comes to newly planted street trees, their roots don't reach down more than a foot or so. in addition, many of the trees planted by the city don't have the room to establish deep root systems, and in many places the water table is many, many feet below ground level. tree roots would never make it down that far.

Sounds reasonable. Do you have any sources?

i'm a trained citizen forester (thanks, casey trees). sorry, no links to anything. you should get trained yourself, it's lots of fun!

I found a link and it looks interesting. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

http://www.caseytrees.org/educ...

Do you have any sources for your belief that IMGoph isn't right? Citations in APA or MLA format please.

Copperreddc - So honest requests for additional information warrants snarky comments? I guess we were all supposed to know that:

1) 1 person claims to be a Citizen Forrester so it must be true.
2) Whatever they said must be true because it sounds good.

I mean, duh, right? Everyone and everything on the internet is correct and credible, after all. Asking people for their sources of information is bad netiquette.

(IMGoph, no offense to you. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction!)

A short review of your comments shows you have an expansive store of snark and condescending commentary. You know glass houses and stones make for a lot of shrapnel.

So honest requests for additional information warrants snarky comments?

New to DCist huh?

Trained surgeon: "We need to stitch that wound shut or the patient will die."
Online commenter: "I really think that wound is just fine, just put a bandage on it- unless I am mistaken."

Are you the resident expert on trees? Please enlighten us.

You can also take the low road and berate everyone you don't agree with. That works too.

The low road I drove down is called the Street of pointing out that the experts at Casey Trees, including Urban Foresters, Certified Arborists, botanists, and general nerds who work with trees for a living probably know more than us. It's a pretty smooth drive.

It runs parallel with that other low road called "It's amusing to second-guess them by just claiming that roots will tap the vast urban water table because I heard about tree roots once in grade school Avenue."

Either one will take you to Berated-Online-Ville.

Congratulations, you've won a gold star for trolling today! I'm sure you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  

Ode to Poopy the Magic Hobo

i think i shall never see
a tree more in need of a pee

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

There is unrest in the forest,
There is trouble with the trees...

Good thing the Mayor is pushing for executive bonuses instead of planting more trees. But it's not like he needs oxygen to survive.

I don't know but it felt as if something that grew in the ground — asleep, you might say, or just feeling itself as something between root-tip and leaf-tip, between deep earth and sky had suddenly waked up, and was considering you with the same slow care that it had given to its own inside affairs for endless years.

It's a little-known fact, but D.C. residents are responsible for watering the city's tree boxes

"Poopy... NOOOOO DON'T DO IT!!"

Good karma pays off. Last summer I noticed several trees on my street needed water. When I went to my storage unit to get a bucket, I found a water leak that otherwise probably wouldn't have been discovered for several hours or even days. By then my stuff would have been damaged, but the early detection saved it all. 

I made sure to give those trees a nice deep drink.

is this a macguffin?

This is exactly what happens when the District doesn't pay enough to attract and retain the best executive Ent talent available. If you're not willing to pay $279,000 to hire a Deputy Assistant Secretary to the Assistant Deputy Secretary for Treeherding, get used to underwatered and restless trees. Although, personally, I blame the Elves for waking them and teaching them to speak in the first place. And where's the Lorax when you need him? I'll tell you where the Lorax is. THE LORAX IS LOOKING OUT FOR THE LORAX!

Thanks, Lorax!

Wait a second, people are telling us to turn off our water while brushing our teeth, to keep it mellow when it's yellow, and now we're supposed to dump water on city owned trees?

Pay no attention to the nonsense, if the trees cannot handle the natural water conditions of any particular environment, they don't belong there.

but you're not well aware of how to establish a tree in an urban environment.

no need to be an asshole about this one, guesty. save it for the 99% of the time otherwise when you're a pompous, stuck-up, jerk.

So when you start attacking people, have your comments deleted, and you are warned to keep down on the name calling, you just go to other threads and start with the juvenile name calling all over again?

Just go sit in a corner, count to ten, and move on.

you'll note that that happened before everything earlier. but i'll do what you said, sir.

Before what?  You're defending going to multiple threads and acting like a baby because you did it before you were reprimanded?   Ya got me there!

You've started every single one of these little fights today, and you've been the one throwing around insults, IMGoph.  And that is what it is.   I'm treating you like a baby today, and only today, because you are behaving like a baby.

I'm just going to agree to not respond to you any further. Your special brand of insult-filled pedantry is tiring. You can have the last word, I don't care. Especially if you want to use some sort of age-based insult.

Seriously, that's like environmental science 101. Use native species. You don't see people planting maple trees in Arizona...

It's actual Dendrology 101. Although the point that saving water is important and true, and you may not think urban trees are worth the water waste, it's not a xeriscape or native issue.

Trees were not designed to grow in 4'X4' dirt patches surrounded by non-permeable surfaces. About 90% of a city trees root area is covered by surface which does not allow water to reach it, add that to the fact that run off in general is faster in the city as it rushes down the gutters, and you have trees that are already living on significantly less water than they were designed to do.  Artificial watering is part of having trees in an artificial environment.

Some native trees can survive tremendous droughts, but it's different when they're in the woods with their entire root area in permeable soil with soft leaf mulch as topping. There are types of successful city trees that have been cultivated for centuries based on varieties that work well in much older cities than DC. This became a problem as soon as the first paved streets came into use. Heat and a very large tree canopy which we enjoy in DC can be a hard thing to balance, but for most of us, it's worth the effort.

And there aren't hardier low water shade trees available for landscaping than maples, oaks and elms?

I think I read somewhere that the maples they use all over town, along with planetrees, pin oaks, and some others, are the most water-wise available for our climate. There are some invasive, more aggressive varieties, that will grow with less, but no one wants them around. I assume that if there were better trees, the people at Casey Trees, along with all the weekend urban foresters, are probably on it.

breathw, count to ten, move on, and stop behaving like a slighted little schoolgirl.

guesty: if you click through to casey trees' website, you'll see they mention that the 25 gallon rule in this paragraph:

Casey Trees' Tree Watering Guide is an easy to follow tool to help D.C. residents practice 25 to Stay Alive
through the spring, summer and fall months when watering trees,
especially those that have been in the ground less than three years, is
critical to their survival.
Young and mature trees require 25 gallons of water -
approximately 1.5 inches of rainfall - per week to grow healthy and
strong. In times of little or no rainfall, and especially during the hot
summer months, trees need your help in getting the recommended 25 gallons of water per week.

I'm sorry that it wasn't included in the brief text of this PSA from dcist. Next time, I'm sure Aaron will endeavor to be more precise.

IMGoph, and I'm going to say this politely, that was not the point of the post.  Nowhere does this post, or the arborists referenced say they are specifically referring to young trees.  This is very similar to our conflict earlier today where you drew conclusions that were not reflective of the information that was available to all of us.

guesty: yes, "saplings" (like the trees with a 2-3 inch caliper that you see newly planted and staked in neighborhood treeboxes) need 25 gallons a week in order to get established and to thrive. that's what the arborists are saying.

IMGoph, I'm all for watering saplings, but that wasn't the point of the post, or apparently the arborists that are saying the trees need 25 gallons of water this week.

the point that should have been made clearer for guesty is that you have to water the newly planted trees, that have not had a chance to establish a strong root system and are dealing with the shock of being transplanted. the trees that he sees surviving are mature.

My original point was not so much to question watering city trees as it was to point out the silliness of water conservation in this region, which has more water flow into our reservoirs than we can use.  When we have a try August, every 3 years or so, then would be a good time to keep it mellow and turn off the water while brushing.  Still, the overwhelming majority of trees seem to survive on urban streets without any watering at all, which makes this all seem silly to me.  If a tree cannot survive, which clearly is a minority of cases, shouldn't that tree be replaced with a hardier low water tree?

Not really. And if you'd like to pay a higher electric bill then by all means don't water those trees. Having your building shaded by canopy cover actually helps keep the interior cool. Look up the heat island effect and go read about how much trees help to mitigate this. Better yet go stand in a wooded area, it doesn't have to be very big - Farragut Square is a good example - and see how much of a temperature difference there is. Luckily trees in parkland have substantially more permeable surface to work with, not so for street trees. You want to stay cool? Water the trees!

I'm well aware of how shade works, thanks.