This hands-on guidebook provides practical, applied information on design considerations, site planning and understand-ing, plant selection, installation, and maintenance of trees in challenging urban environments.

“Far-ranging and deeply researched, Urban Forests reveals the beauty and significance of the trees around us.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction “Jonnes extols the many contributions that trees make to city life and celebrates the men and women who stood up for America’s city trees over the past two centuries. . . . An authoritative account.” —Gerard Helferich, The Wall Street Journal “We all know that trees can make streets look prettier. But in her new book Urban Forests, Jill Jonnes explains how they make them safer as well.” —Sara Begley, Time Magazine A celebration of urban trees and the Americans—presidents, plant explorers, visionaries, citizen activists, scientists, nurserymen, and tree nerds—whose arboreal passions have shaped and ornamented the nation’s cities, from Jefferson’s day to the present As nature’s largest and longest-lived creations, trees play an extraordinarily important role in our cities; they are living landmarks that define space, cool the air, soothe our psyches, and connect us to nature and our past. Today, four-fifths of Americans live in or near urban areas, surrounded by millions of trees of hundreds of different species. Despite their ubiquity and familiarity, most of us take trees for granted and know little of their fascinating natural history or remarkable civic virtues. Jill Jonnes’s Urban Forests tells the captivating stories of the founding mothers and fathers of urban forestry, in addition to those arboreal advocates presently using the latest technologies to illuminate the value of trees to public health and to our urban infrastructure. The book examines such questions as the character of American urban forests and the effect that tree-rich landscaping might have on commerce, crime, and human well-being. For amateur botanists, urbanists, environmentalists, and policymakers, Urban Forests will be a revelation of one of the greatest, most productive, and most beautiful of our natural resources.

A fascinating and beautifully illustrated volume that explains what street trees tell us about humanity’s changing relationship with nature and the city Today, cities around the globe are planting street trees to mitigate the effects of climate change. However, as landscape historian Sonja Dümpelmann explains, this is not a new phenomenon. In her eye-opening work, Dümpelmann shows how New York City and Berlin began systematically planting trees to improve the urban climate during the nineteenth century, presenting the history of the practice within its larger social, cultural, and political contexts. A unique integration of empirical research and theory, Dümpelmann’s richly illustrated work uncovers this important untold story. Street trees—variously regarded as sanitizers, nuisances, upholders of virtue, economic engines, and more—reflect the changing relationship between humans and nonhuman nature in urban environments. Offering valuable insights and frameworks, this authoritative volume will be an important resource for years to come.

This multidisciplinary book covers all aspects of planning, designing, establishing and managing forests and trees and forests in and near urban areas, with chapters by experts in forestry, horticulture, landscape ecology, landscape architecture and even plant pathology. Beginning with historical and conceptual basics, the coverage includes policy, design, implementation and management of forestry for urban populations.

Mike Sullivan loves his adopted city of San Francisco, and he loves trees. In The Trees of San Francisco he has combined his passions, offering a striking and handy compendium of botanical information, historical tidbits, cultivation hints, and more. Sullivan's introduction details the history of trees in the city, a fairly recent phenomenon. The text then piques the reader's interest with discussions of 71 city trees. Each tree is illustrated with a photograph--with its common and scientific names prominently displayed--and its specific location within San Francisco, along with other sites; frequently a close-up shot of the tree is included. Sprinkled throughout are 13 sidelights relating to trees; among the topics are the city's wild parrots and the trees they love; an overview of the objectives of the Friends of the Urban Forest; and discussions about the link between Australia's trees and those in the city, such as the eucalyptus. The second part of the book gets the reader up and about, walking the city to see its trees. Full-page color maps accompany the seven detailed tours, outlining the routes; interesting factoids are interspersed throughout the directions. A two-page color map of San Francisco then highlights 25 selected neighborhoods ideal for viewing trees, leading into a checklist of the neighborhoods and their trees.

This book provides guidelines for developing and maintaining sound architectural trunk and branch structure. It is written around the drawings and photographs to serve as the the main teaching tool for students to learn by acutally pruning. The concepts presented in the drawings will provide enough information to allow you to begin pruning trees quickly, correctly and more efficiently. A must for anyone who works with trees and shrubs.

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.

Towns and cities are where most of us live, work and play, and although we recognize the value of the trees standing on the corner, or in the park, most of us are unaware that they are a vital part of our urban life-support system. This book is suitable for those who wish to discover why trees are present in our population centres.

Numerous studies indicate an accelerated growth of forest trees, induced by ongoing climate change. Similar trends were recently found for urban trees in major cities worldwide. Studies frequently report about substantial effects of climate change and the urban heat island effect (UHI) on plant growth. The combined effects of increasing temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and extended growing season lengths, in addition to increasing nitrogen deposition and higher CO2 concentrations, can increase but also reduce plant growth. Closely related to this, the multiple functions and services provided by urban trees may be modified. Urban trees generate numerous ecosystem services, including carbon storage, mitigation of the heat island effect, reduction of rainwater runoff, pollutant filtering, recreation effects, shading, and cooling. The quantity of the ecosystem services is often closely associated with the species, structure, age, and size of the tree as well as with a tree’s vitality. Therefore, greening cities, and particularly planting trees, seems to be an effective option to mitigate climate change and the UHI. The focus of this Special Issue is to underline the importance of trees as part of the urban green areas for major cities in all climate zones. Empirical as well as modeling studies of urban tree growth and their services and disservices in cities worldwide are included. Articles about the dynamics, structures, and functions of urban trees as well as the influence of climate and climate change on urban tree growth, urban species composition, carbon storage, and biodiversity are also discussed.

There is a growing evidence base that documents the social, environmental and economic benefits that urban trees can deliver. Trees are, however, under threat today as never before due to competition for space imposed by development, other hard infrastructures, increased pressure on the availability of financial provision from local authorities and a highly cautious approach to risk management in a modern litigious society. It is, therefore, incumbent upon all of us in construction and urban design disciplines to pursue a set of goals that not only preserve existing trees where we can, but also ensure that new plantings are appropriately specified and detailed to enable their successful establishment and growth to productive maturity. Aimed at developers, urban planners, urban designers, landscape architects and arboriculturists, this book takes a candid look at the benefits that trees provide alongside the threats that are eliminating them from our towns and cities. It takes a simple, applied approach that explores a combination of science and practical experience to help ensure a pragmatic and reasoned approach to decision-making in terms of tree selection, specification, placement and establishment. In this way, trees can successfully be incorporated within our urban landscapes, so that we can continue to reap the benefits they provide.