In the spirit: Paradise Lost…And Found garden

Monkey puzzle tree

Photographs taken during the 2009 San Francisco Flower & Garden Show

The garden was designed by Joleen and Tony Morales of Redwood Landscape in Millbrae, California. Read our essay about some of the show's gardens at Human Flower Project.

Untitled architecture installation

Wurster Hall, Department of Architecture, UC Berkeley, May 2009

Question: What is it? A sun catcher? A sun dial?

Jane's houses

In the span of a year, I visited Jane Jacobs's New York and Toronto neighborhoods. During a 2008 research trip to Toronto, I walked through Spadina and photographed Jane's former house.

This summer, inspired by Anthony Flint's Boston Globe article about Jane "wrestling" with Robert Moses, I visited Hudson Street in Greenwich Village, site of the famous "intricate sidewalk ballet." I did not observe a sidewalk ballet when I walked Hudson between 11th and Perry Streets on a September afternoon. The ballet described by Jacobs's in Death and Life of Great American Cities occurred on a weekday evening.

Four in a million trees - Million Trees NYC

First, a quote from the MillionTreesNYC website about the tree planting campaign:

MillionTreesNYC, one of the 127 PlaNYC initiatives, is a citywide, public-private program with an ambitious goal: to plant and care for one million new trees across the City's five boroughs over the next decade. By planting one million trees, New York City can increase its urban forest—our most valuable environmental asset made up of street trees, park trees, and trees on public, private and commercial land—by an astounding 20%, while achieving the many quality-of-life benefits that come with planting trees.

We've been eyeing four trees on West Broadway (not to be confused with the western section of Broadway) planted as part of the city's million tree-planting campaign. The trees are a mix of pin (Quercus palustris) and red (Q. rubra) oaks which can attain mature heights of up to 75 feet (with a 40 foot canopy) and 90 feet, respectively. Note the gardens planted in the tree basins. The garden in the second photograph has not thrived.

Cooling parking lots - trees face competition from PV carports

The Sacramento Parking Lot Ordinance, passed in 1983, has a 50% shading requirement for off-street, surface parking lots within 15 years of their development (Sacramento City Code, Title 17). Sacramento was one of several California cities that passed "cooling" ordinances in response to the energy crisis of the 1970s (McPherson 2001). Sacramento's shading requirement mandates tree planting. McPherson (2001) writes that not only is "tree planting is one of the most cost-effective means of mitigating urban heat islands and associated expenditures for air conditioning" (after Huang et al., 1987; Akbari et al., 1992; Simpson and McPherson, 1998), tree planting is "considered essential to moderating the heat gained by asphalt parking lots" (after Asaeda et al., 1996).

S Street, Sacramento

Despite the effectiveness of tree planting in moderating elevated temperatures of surface parking lots as well as in providing associated benefits such as stormwater runoff mitigation, trees have competitors. During my field work, I learned that photovoltaic shade structures are becoming a popular alternative to trees in providing surface shading. (I am not sure if the city's ordinance has been revised to accommodate these structures.)

PV-shade structures provide not only shade, but the capture of solar energy can provide revenue to the property owner. The parking lot in the above photograph is owned by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. The lot sits on the site of a former building. The array

produces 80 kilowatts of electricity. This is equivalent to powering about 40 single-family homes or enough hydrogen for about 14 fuel-cell vehicles. (SMUD News Release 2008)

A final thought: I prefer the tree-shaded parking lot; in addition to its environmental benefits, it is more attractive than the PV-carport. Hopefully the MIT scientists who have mimicked photosynthesis will focus on using photosynthetic energy to power electric vehicles.

Conventional versus expanded tree basin, San Francisco style

Dolores Street, San Francisco

We're back from our California research trip. We conducted field work in Sacramento and San Francisco. In yesterday's post, we featured a photograph of an assessment of Sacramento's urban heat island. Today's post features two types of street tree planting areas in San Francisco: a conventional tree pit and an expanded tree basin. The former is typically 3 feet by 3 feet. The expanded basin in the photograph is 54 feet by 6 feet!

Providing expanded tree basins in San Francisco's neighborhoods is a project of the Friends of the Urban Forest (FUF). Using the city's Permeable Sidewalk Landscaping Permit, FUF staff and neighborhood residents remove sidewalk concrete blocks to provide greater planting and growing space and other environmental benefits:

Valley Street looking east towards Dolores Street, San Francisco

The replacement of concrete by plants allows for the absorption heat instead of reflection of it. This absorption of solar energy reduces the Urban Heat Island effect, a phenomenon which can significantly alter surrounding ecosystems and increase the amount of energy used in the city. These open areas also absorb more rainfall, reducing the strain on our combined sewer system, a system that mixes building waste with street water runoff before processing. In periods of high rain fall our sewer system can't handle the volume of water that passes through it and the combined sewage is released directly into the bay without being cleaned. Removing a 3' square of concrete will reduce the amount of rainfall run-off by five gallons for every inch of rain that falls. (fuf.net)

Sacramento's Urban Heat Island, circa 1998

Photograph taken at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SUMD) Customer Service Headquarters

This map of surface temperatures is the product of a 1998 NASA flyover of Sacramento. The hottest temperatures are represented by red, orange and yellow while cooler temperatures are represented by green, blue, and purple. The map illustrates the city's urban heat island. Impermeable, dry surfaces, more common in urban areas, have elevated temperatures which contributes to greater energy use and emissions, poor water quality, and reduced human healthiness (see Eric Klinenberg's Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago).

Smell the flowers all week

We are on a week-long research trip. While we're away, we encourage you to read our contributions to the Human Flower Project.

Matchmaking on the Wedding Day

A Legacy of Jamaican Fruits

HFQ#9: What Thrives in Qatar?

A photo: Escalator Garden

HFQ#8: Fungi Need Names

Kings, Queens and Mangosteens

Listen Up: SF Garden Show 2009

HFQ #6: Fit for Foraging?

Oops a Daisy ~ Plant Idioms

The Florists of Telegraph Avenue

Walking with 'Sharp-eyed' Margot

Bookends: Native and Ornamental

Gardening in Prison

Street Trees: Let’s Think Outside the Wires

A photo: Slow Down for Quince

A photo: Quatrefoil—Flower of Andalusian Architecture

Pollen-feld: A Bee Movie Review

Georgia’s News Bouquet: 3rd Week of Oct.

Bringing City Trees to Fruition

Wildlife could "takeback" the Holbeck Urban Village in Leeds

From the Garnett Netherwood website

Spotted in the October 2009 issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine, the proposed Urban Takeback project by architects at Garnett Netherwood consists of Green Tower Structures designed "to cater for the wildlife of Holbeck Urban Village" in Leeds, England.

Funky nest identified...almost!

Could the "funky nest" we wrote about in our May Bird Watch be the nest of a Bullock's Oriole?

We received an email from Cornell's NestWatch that identified the nest as that of a Baltimore Oriole but NestWatch was not aware that the nest was photographed in Berkeley, California. California is not part of the Baltimore Oriole's range, but the state is part of the Bullock's Oriole's range. However, the Bullock's Oriole is "a bird of open woodlands in the American West, the Bullock's Oriole is especially fond of tall trees along rivers and streams" (All About Birds). Our nest was located in a front yard, adjacent to the sidewalk, with no water in (human) sight. (The nest has been found in urban parks, near water.) But, the Bullock Oriole's nest resembles the Baltimore Oriole's nest.... What do you think?

Scenes from the road - Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong

On a ped. bridge above a highway near National Univ. of Singapore

In a tram on Hong Kong Island

Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Twin Towers ahead, Malaysia

Watching trishaws and scooters on Lebuh Light in Georgetown, Penang (Pinang), Malaysia

In a trishaw going through an intersection near Khoo Kongsi in Georgetown, Penang (Pinang), Malaysia

Festival of the Trees #40, the benefits of trees

Northern New England autumn leaves, courtesy of Letters from a Hill Farm

Aspen gold by Priscilla Stuckey, PhD of this lively earth is the perfect kick-off to this edition of Festival of the Trees. First, it feels like fall in New York City where this edition was written. Second, Priscilla's post perfectly captures some of the psychological benefits of trees. She writes,

A photo cannot capture the sensation of being surrounded by a thousand twinkling prisms of golden light.

and

And then there is the special aroma of aspens. Sniffing an aspen grove sometimes makes me imagine that I’ve discovered an ancient wooden chest that sat empty for centuries, and I suddenly lift the lid.

After all, trees are usually preserved and planted because of their appeal to our senses.

DN Lee of Urban Science Adventures! is working on her PhD dissertation; she's 72% there according to her dissertation progress meter. Lee writes about the shade-giving Mimosa Tree in her paternal grandmother's back yard.

I remember this tree as magical. Shorter than the other trees in the yard, but much, much taller than me, this tree always provided a cool, shady spot in the backyard.

And a Mimosa at the War Veterans Memorial in Rennes, France.

Yes, it still can do important jobs like provide food and shelter for animals and insects, but we plant it because it's pretty and provide shade to people.

In another post about trees seen in France, DN Lee remarks that she did not see acorns last fall in the U.S. Well, this year she might.

Courtesy of Hoarded Ordinaries

Lorianne of Hoarded Ordinaries has noticed a big acorn mast in Newton, Massachusetts and throughout New England. Why the bumper crop in New England? According to a Boston.com article,

Scientists say oak trees produce bumper crops of acorns every two to seven years, but that the record snowfalls and rain over the past year have helped the acorns bloom larger and in greater numbers than they otherwise would have. No one in the state tracks the actual number of acorns every year, but observers from the Blue Hills to the Berkshires say they can’t remember a larger crop.

Wildlife are the beneficiaries of this bumper mast. Also from Boston.com,

...the extra acorns will probably reverberate across the food chain, enabling more squirrels, skunks, chipmunks, mice, deer, and bears to survive the winter. As a result, predators such as hawks, coyote, foxes, and others are also likely to flourish next year, when there is more prey.

Courtesy of Rock Paper Lizard

Acorns may be wildlife booty, but horse chestnut fruits are wind-given "kid treasure" writes Hugh of Rock Paper Lizard. You cannot eat horse chestnuts but you can eat the fruit and sap of the Palmyra Palm or nongu (in Tamil). Arati of Trees, Plants and More writes,

The fruit is edible, is similar to the flesh of the lychee and is very cooling. Very refreshing in these incredibly hot and humid summers! The sugary sap from this tree is used to make an alcoholic beverage (toddy) and a concentrated sugar, used in indian cooking (jaggery).

Another Tamil treat can be made from the flowers of the neem tree. Head to Trees, Plants and More for the recipe.

Courtesy of Rambling Woods

Rambling Woods's beautifully illustrated post about a wetland woods "in a western NY suburb" was written specifically for this issue of FOTT. The woods, pictured above, provide habitat for

... a pair of horned owls and they nest every February finding small rodents to feed their nestlings. Black-capped chickadees, white-breasted nuthatcheds, tufted titmice, northern cardinals, blue jays and other species call this area home....

But all is not well in the woods. Fewer "large tracts of mature trees" mean less habitat for large woodpeckers like the Pileated Woodpecker and increased conflicts between humans and wildlife such as coyotes, white-tailed deer, and "even black bears." Another walk through the woods, this one more upbeat, is provided by Seabrooke of the Marvelous in nature. Seabrooke's "artifical" natural forest houses

A total of 141 species of birds have been tallied from the forest, including such rare or threatened species as Evening Grosbeak, Northern Goshawk, and Whip-poor-will. Other groups, including herpetiles, mammals, butterflies, odonates, vascular plants, and others, have also been documented. They’ve even got a moth list, which stands at 211 species, probably representing only a handful of nights of effort, given that any mothing parties would by necessity need to be brought in and run off of a generator.

This Festival ends with a return to the city with one of our - local ecologist - posts. We travelled to Chicago this summer and fell in love with the city all over again.

The city is lined with street gardens which not only beautify the streets but also mitigate Chicago's urban heat island. With the cooler temperatures of fall here one might want as much heat as possible. But these gardens help cool Chicago during its famously hot summers. And during rain events, their permeable surfaces not only absorb rain but don't contribute to runoff.

The November Festival, FOTT #41, will be hosted by Juliana of Blog do Arvores Vivas. The theme of FOTT 41 is "If I were a tree" and submissions are due to arvoresvivas (at) gmail.com by October 29, 2009. I enjoyed compiling your submissions for FOTT 40; thanks to Dave Bonta for the opportunity to do so, again!