Industry News

Google launches new tool to help cities stay cool

Thu, 3 Dec 2020 19:04:46 GMT

Google unveiled a tool today that could help cities keep their residents cool by mapping out where trees are needed most. Cities tend to be warmer than surrounding areas because buildings and asphalt trap heat. An easy way to cool metropolitan areas down is to plant more trees in neighborhoods where they’re sparse.

Are Trees A Focus For Your Healthcare Facility?

Sun, 13 Sep 2020 21:35:19 GMT

For the second year, the Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree Campus Healthcare program will recognize healthcare facility campuses fostering community wellness through tree planting, education, and engagement.

Space to grow, or grow in space -- how vertical farms could be ready to take-off

Mon, 27 Jul 2020 14:38:57 GMT

Vertical farms with their soil-free, computer-controlled environments may sound like sci-fi. But there is a growing environmental and economic case for them, according to new research laying out radical ways of putting food on our plates.

More Trees, Parks May Mean Longer Lives for City Dwellers

Wed, 13 May 2020 20:22:10 GMT

More green spaces in cities could significantly reduce premature deaths and their costs, researchers say.

Conifer is top tree in urban sound absorption test

Thu, 9 Apr 2020 00:41:06 GMT

Scientists say trees have a role to play in combating noise pollution in urban environments and

have identified the best species for the job.

The larch was found to be the most effective tree when it comes to absorbing noise with its bark.

The conifer was the most effective out of 13 tree species in a laboratory-based sound absorption test.

The researchers say the findings can help urban planners use trees for noise control.

The results have been published in the Applied Acoustics journal.

The study assessed 76 samples from 13 tree species that displayed a variety of different bark characteristics.

Denver wants more trees, but arborists say the workforce can’t keep up

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 17:25:31 GMT

By Denverite

Over the weekend, Front Range professional arborists gathered in Denver to climb trees.

Contestants and spectators crowded around five massive specimens in Crestmoor Park as experts raced up ropes and branches, rescued a dangling dummy and tossed lines high into the foliage. It was the regional Olympics for tree nerds, put on by the rocky mountain chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture.

Read the full article.

Branching out: Making graphene from gum trees

Wed, 17 Jul 2019 15:14:25 GMT

By Phys.org

Graphene is the thinnest and strongest material known to humans. It's also flexible, transparent and conducts heat and electricity 10 times better than copper, making it ideal for anything from flexible nanoelectronics to better fuel cells.

The new approach by researchers from RMIT University (Australia) and the National Institute of Technology, Warangal (India), uses Eucalyptus bark extract and is cheaper and more sustainable than current synthesis methods.

Read the full article.

Trees that are centuries old help tell story of Spokane

Mon, 20 May 2019 15:13:16 GMT

By The Spokesman-Review

When Jeff Perry wraps his arms around a Douglas fir growing out of the edge of an Indian Canyon Park cliff, his limbs only span about a third of the tree.

Perry, a city arborist, estimates the tree is one of the region’s oldest surviving firs, at around 400 years old. The tree is one of three ancient Douglas firs overlooking Mystic Falls, and just a short walk away from Chief Spokane Garry’s final campsite. He said it’s difficult to measure, because it’s holding together the edge of a cliff.

He said the Indian Canyon’s three ancient Douglas firs are far too big to be logged, and their only value now is their presence in the undeveloped park.

People from all over the world are sending emails to Melbourne’s trees

Thu, 14 Feb 2019 15:19:50 GMT

Melbourne gave 70,000 trees email addresses so people could report on their condition. But

instead people are writing love letters, existential queries and sometimes just bad puns.

Read the letters here.

The Allure of Vertical Forests

Thu, 31 Jan 2019 19:32:17 GMT

NEW ORLEANS — The Vertical Forest buildings of the architect and urban planner Stefano

Boeri make the most of the often overlooked and profound contributions of a single tree.

The Vertical Forest prototype was first constructed four years ago in Milan, Italy, where a pair of apartment buildings also housed 21,000 plants and 20 species of birds.

Cities cover only about 3 percent of the Earth’s land, Mr. Boeri said during his presentation at the conference. But they are responsible for 70 percent of the world’s energy consumption and 75 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to climate change, which threatens to significantly alter New Orleans and the Southeast, according to a federal National Climate Assessment report released last month.

American sycamore tree in Hannibal crowned new state champion

Mon, 31 Dec 2018 14:43:51 GMT

Hannibal, Mo (WGEM) — The Missouri Department of Conservation recently crowned a new

state champion American sycamore tree in Hannibal.

MDC Forester David Vance presented the Missouri Champion Tree plaque to Linda Coleberd, who owns the land where the tree stands along Cave Hollow Drive at the Mark Twain Cave Complex.

MDC officials say the American Sycamore tree is native to Missouri and noted for its fast growth, impressive stature, and unusual bark which sheds in thin plates to reveal distinctive white limbs. Sycamores attain the largest size of any deciduous tree in the U.S. and constitute an integral part of Missouri’s streamside habitats.

More Trees, Happier People

Tue, 16 Oct 2018 15:44:16 GMT

NASHVILLE — The scene in a tiny pocket park outside Plaza Mariachi here on Nolensville Pike

last Wednesday was like a tableau from a Norman Rockwell painting, 21st-century style. Surrounded by signs advertising the Hispanic Family Foundation, Dubai Jewelry, the Dominican Barber Shop and restaurants offering Peruvian, Chinese, Mediterranean and Indian food — as well as a Game Stop franchise and H&R Block — was a small sign that read, “Today: Free trees.”

The arrow on the sign pointed to a pop-up canopy where the Nashville Tree Foundation was hosting its fourth tree giveaway of October. A family standing under the canopy was posing for a photo with the sapling they had just adopted. Carolyn Sorenson, executive director of the foundation, was taking the picture: “Say ‘trees’!” she said.

Covering Calgary in a canopy is a battle

Wed, 7 Feb 2018 17:00:30 GMT

Calgarians love their trees. A new city report says so. But trees do not love Calgary.

The benefits of planting a robust tree canopy – beauty, cleaner air, better property values – are well known to urban dwellers. But in this western city, it's an expensive, uphill battle to create a forest oasis in the middle of what was once a vast, dry prairie.

Nearly every tree in Calgary, whether on public or private land, was planted by people. Our urban forest is a human-made project.

Drones can fix our forest problem by planting 100,000 trees a day

Fri, 2 Feb 2018 14:41:49 GMT

We’re so good and so busy at cutting down trees that we can’t possibly make up for the forests we lose each year by replanting trees by hand.

However, smart drones could fix humanity’s major deforestation problem by planting trees cheaper and more efficiently than humans. These tree-planting drone armies could plant as many as 100,000 trees every day, even in remote locations that aren’t easily accessible.

The benefits of street trees

Mon, 6 Nov 2017 14:30:17 GMT

What Does It Take To Move A 10-Story Tree A Couple Of City Blocks?

Fri, 30 Jun 2017 16:27:49 GMT

The historic giant sequoia in Boise, Idaho, towers some 10 stories tall. At more than a century old, it also weighs a hefty 800,000 pounds and measures roughly 20 feet around at its base. Oh, and it had to move a few city blocks.

All of which raised a very good question: How the heck was that going to happen?

If you ask St. Luke's Health System, the hospital that had to move the tree in order to expand, the answer boiled down to this: a whole lot of determination — that, and a whole lot of money and patience. The hospital spent $300,000 on a plan that was long in the works.