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Creating an Urban Oasis (1992)
(nature sounds)
(traffic sounds)
NARRATOR: Trees have a way of turning a hard and empty place into a world of comfort.
(music)
NARRATOR: Wherever they've settled to create towns and cities,
people have put down roots in more ways than one for a long time.
In the United States in the early 1900s, trees were planted to give shelter along new avenues.
American Elms became the most popular trees because they were easy to plant
and grew into enormous shade trees.
The Dutch Elm disease, a fungus that kills American Elms, changed all that.
The hazards of depending on one type of tree became all too clear
as city streets across America turned from green to gray.
At the same time automobiles were making it easy to forget the pleasures of shaded avenues.
Trees just seemed to be in the way.
FREVERT: Cities just traditionally have not been developed with trees in mind,
so what we've ended up within many cities areas are just wall to wall concrete, glass, asphalt.
But people really don't feel comfortable in that kind of environment; they want green space.
People feel much more comfortable living with green space around them.
(crashing sounds)
NARRATOR: Years ago this spot was covered with concrete.
It was a place that shut out the natural world.
Today some trees and other plants have reclaimed the land...for a while.
It's an extreme contrast, but points to one fact: trees and people are often at odds.
FREVERT: We run into lots of problems trying to grow trees in a city environment.
There's a lack of space to grow them, there's usually very poor soil to contend with,
there's air pollution, there's runoff pollution, lots of people pressures.
People know that having trees in a city makes a difference,
so the question is, how are they going to do it?
ROSS: Arbor Day has been a real important event in Missouri for many years
ever since the state legislature first designated Arbor Day in 1886.
For the past 12 years the Department of Conservation has provided nearly 140 thousand seedlings
to fourth graders throughout the state of Missouri.
When the kids get the trees home, they're pretty excited.
They want to get out and dig the hole and get the tree planted.
They get a chance to feel the soil, and water the tree, and see it come alive and it becomes their personal tree.
It helps them understand the relationships of that plant with the other animals and plants in their backyard.
I'm really pleased about the enthusiasm we're seeing from adults about tree planting.
We've had a planting near Kansas City in the shape of a heart representing the heartland forest.
We've had over 10,000 trees planted on Earth Day along the Riverfront in St. Louis.
(music)
ROSS: One-day events are great. They create a lot of excitement and interest in trees.
But if we're really going to be successful in maintaining healthy trees,
vigorous trees in our cities and urban areas, it takes a long-term commitment to the maintenance and care of those trees.
EIB: People coming from the east and the west to visit Kansas City, or passing through Kansas City,
are amazed sometimes because they think it's going to be just like Kansas out there, no trees and the plains.
But Kansas City is fortunate in having over 500,000 trees on city streets.
And on boulevards, we have over 40,000 trees. We have over 500,000, we estimate, in park areas.
It's our goal each year to plant 5,000 trees on the city streets,
but that's not possible sometimes due to budgetary factors.
Those trees that are planted are watered every 10 days the first growing season
because it's very important in establishing the newly planted tree.
And having a good urban forestry program is not only planting the tree, but it's also the maintenance that comes involved.
That's watering, pruning, and removing the trees when they are dead or in the stage of decline, or have disease.
Each summer we hire students in forestry or horticulture to inspect our trees throughout the city.
We usually lose around 1,200 trees to Dutch Elm disease and die back and just normal causes.
Kansas City has a heritage of trees. It's a heritage that we want to continue,
but it's not just the planting of the tree, it's the maintenance that comes involved that you have to take into account,
and a lot of people forget that that is costly also.
NARRATOR: In most cities the job of taking care of trees falls to a utility or parks department.
Few cities are so committed to their trees that they keep a forester on staff.
BONHAM: University City is not a large community with a large budget,
but yet we have residents that care enough about trees that we have an active forestry program.
With 30,000 trees we don't have a lot of budget for manicuring,
but we do take out all dead trees as required and continue to prune and maintain all of our old trees,
as well as plant over 400 new trees each year.
We plant a lot of our own trees.
We plant many different varieties for diversity, not only for the resistance from disease and insects,
but also so that we can draw upon the different features of the trees,
the flowers, the textures of the leaves, different fall color and we can have beautiful trees throughout our city.
In addition to the benefits from our living trees,
we try to use all parts of the trees including the leaves that fall in the autumn.
We collect them from our streets and compost them by making large windrows and turning and aerating them
until we can have a nice humus product.
We sell this leaf mulch to contractors, nurserymen,
and provide it free to our residents to add to their flowerbeds and their gardens.
If we do have to take a tree down, we also recycle the wood and the wood chips.
And we have a large pile in the park available to residents for their use and pick up.
Our forestry division has been in existence for over 30 years,
planting, maintaining, and removing trees so that we have a valuable resource for our community.
NARRATOR: Not every town has a history of caring for its trees to build on,
but everyone has to start somewhere.
CARTER: I got into it, and I started going around looking at the particular sites where I was going to plant the trees.
And when we actually got to putting the stakes down, people were actually coming out of the houses asking,
"what are you going to do?"
And when we told them, they wanted trees.
And our first planting, we planted five different types of trees so that we wouldn't have the disease problem again that we'd had in the past.
so that we wouldn't have the disease problem again that we'd had in the past.
I found out that it was crucial that, if you're going to plant trees,
you should plant more than one type because if a disease or a parasite comes through,
it wipes your entire block out.
So I decided I was told I could go with a minimum of three,
so I decided to be on the safe side to go with a maximum of five.
MAN: These trees are Canadian hemlock trees...
CARTER: We also got a matching grant where we planted trees at City Hall to conserve energy.
Another project we planted was in low-income housing. We planted trees to conserve energy on those streets.
The citizens got so enthused though, that we were having requests
for people who actually wanted trees that the board members decided to put more money out of the city funds
general revenue into the budget for upcoming trees we're planting this fall.
So I'm real excited about that.
And some of the other board members have gotten just as excited about the trees as I have now.
I just love trees. I think they are beautiful.
I love walking under the trees, feeling the breeze blow on you.
It's just a wonderful place to be. It just adds beauty to your community.
MAN: Tim and Jerry, we're trying to solve a problem with the
looks down in here of maybe trying to hide the cement and make this more attractive.
FREVERT: Even a grove of cypress trees in this bottom would do well and they would cover up these concrete structures pretty well....
FREVERT: A community that is interested in having green space and trees
should think of approaching the problem in a series of steps.
One would be to assess what green space and trees are existing in the community presently.
Then, figure out where you want to be in the future.
What should the trees be like?
And thirdly, to devise a plan on how to get there.
NARRATOR: The choices made today will affect the way our cities look tomorrow.
Trees can help in several ways:
They can enhance places to go to enjoy the outdoors.
They can be homes to all kinds of animals.
They can help to screen out the busy sounds of urban life.
(traffic sounds)
(nature sounds)
NARRATOR: As cities sprawl into the countryside, how we build our homes plays a part in shaping the look of where we live.
Traditional building methods haven't always taken trees into account,
but as more homebuyers are willing to pay for a green landscape,
more builders are putting effort into saving the trees.
WATTS: Basically what we tried to create here was a site that looked like it was old and established,
something like going to grandma's house that's been there for a 100 years and the trees have grown up—
it's cool, it's pleasant, it's well established.
On the lots we have out here, also, the lots with trees on them were the first lots to sell.
The price was higher, and people were willing to pay for the trees.
And then, if the builder's willing to build on the lot and save the trees, it's that much better.
One of the best ways to save the trees, too, during construction is not to stack the dirt around the trees.
We haul it out to a close site,
and that way we avoid heavy equipment compacting the dirt around the trees and the roots near the surface,
which will eventually kill the trees.
We tried to stay away from the roots with all the utilities.
We concentrate those into one area.
It's something that has to be worked with, but it's well worth it.
It's not that much more expensive I figured maybe $5,000 more on a lot to completely save all of the trees.
But like I say, you can't replace the landscaping like this for $5,000.
(nature sounds)
WRIGHT: Trees are an element that architects enjoy working with because they help give form to the buildings that we design.
When you're designing a building, there are a lot form givers.
Trees are just one of those.
The direction that the sun's shining from, the direction that the winter winds blow from, are all things that help shape buildings.
On the south side of the house, the deciduous tree helps block the summer sun when it has its leaves on.
And when it loses its leaves in the wintertime, it allows the sun to enter the house and, therefore, help heat the house.
In the wintertime, you can use evergreen trees on the north side of houses to help block the winter winds.
NARRATOR: Of course if there are no trees in an area where you want some, then you'll have to plant.
And that's when some important choices are made.
FREVERT: Some of the factors that we would want to take into consideration in selecting a tree for planting would be,
number one, the overall size and shape that the tree would attain at maturity.
That would be very important.
Trees, of course, grow in different growth habits. Some trees, like maples and oaks, tend to be more broad spreading.
Other trees, like hornbeams, tend to be more columnar in shape.
Many of the flowering trees tend to be low growing.
Many of the flowering trees tend to be low growing.
Other considerations would be whether the tree has attractive spring flowers, fall coloration.
Sometimes fruits are attractive to birds and other wildlife.
EMMETT: Choosing and planting trees in an urban area can be a real challenge.
We have some unique stresses and things we deal with in an urban area that you don't find in rural parts of our state.
One in particular is air pollution.
The contaminants—ozone, sulfur we deal with here—can be a stress factor on a tree.
WOMAN: I just want to know if I can save the tree. Is it going to die? It's losing its green color.
EMMETT: Yeah, there shouldn't be any real problem with saving it.
What you're experiencing—I know it's probably no comfort to you, we've seen a lot of it over the past couple of weeks—it's an ozone problem.
It's an environmental problem rather than our typical insect or disease problem.
It's due to environmental pollutions—air pollutions in particular—sulfur compounds going in the atmosphere.
And in the St. Louis area, we've got a lot of that with the airport, and heavy industries, and coal being burned and stuff.
We've got sulfur and other contaminants in the air.
And it gets high enough where we have so-called ozone inversion, where the chemicals are held against the earth.
Trees like the white pine, in particular, are very susceptible to this type of damage.
In fact, sometimes they're considered indicators of pollution problems because they show the tip die back, even after a rain.
The soil is another unique challenge to tree survival in an urban area.
Many times in the urban area, we're dealing with soils that have been highly compacted,
not only by foot traffic, but also by vehicle traffic.
We have to realize that even a large oak tree such as this
has a root system that is contained in the upper 24 to 36 inches of soil.
These compacted soils cause real problems to an urban shade tree
because it cuts off the flow of water and oxygen to the tree's root system.
(machinery sounds)
NARRATOR: Life close to people can be tough on trees,
but with the right care, they can grow, and grow, and grow.
Putting a tree in the ground is only the beginning.
If it has the right features for a particular spot, maintaining it is less of a problem.
But a forest, or even a single tree, is always changing.
So the right care is essential to keeping a community green.
(chain saw sounds)
SPRADLEY: After you plant your favorite tree, there's a lot of things you oughta think about as far as the care.
You need to consider pruning, as far as dead and diseased limbs,
proper fertilization in a lawn area where the leaves are always raked away,
and proper watering to help in the establishment of that new tree.
When it comes to pruning, there's a big between good and bad.
Most people in this area tend to feel that they need to take a tree and cut it in half by topping it,
and they've traded a healthier and a safer tree, and that's wrong.
Trees should be treated naturally.
Target your cuts selectively and keep it in that natural form and branch structure.
It's important to remove dead and extremely sick trees that it looks like there's no way of saving,
for the fact that we're getting rid of all of the disease and insect infestation that can spread to that same species again.
EMMETT: Interest in community tree programs has actually grown
to the point where it's getting hard to get a lot of communities and people to cut
trees in any form—pruning, take downs whatever else.
But in an urban forest, we know it's a very real part of urban forestry is pruning, maintenance, and actual take down of hazardous trees.
(music)
NARRATOR: One tree makes little difference in the world,
but many trees over many years can change the character of a town or city.
The desert-like heat of acres of concrete can be transformed into a kind of oasis.
It just takes the right trees in the right places, given the right kind of care.
And of course it takes the people, the people who care enough to make it happen.
EMMETT: ...the insect is extremely feeble, and you knock it off and it's probably pretty well finished off.
What I've heard a lot of people do....
(music)
(birds singing)