New USFS Resources
Expanding Urban Tree Species Diversity in Florida (USA):
Challenges and Opportunities for Practitioners
While many practitioners and scholars understand the risks associated with low urban tree diversity, they often
lack the ability to address this challenge on their own. The complex system of tree production and procure-
ment is shaped by market pressures, nursery and site constraints, local governance, and differing professional
objectives among those who grow, specify, and plant trees. To understand constraints to and opportunities for
increasing urban tree diversity, researchers conducted a series of focus groups composed of nursery growers,
landscape architects, and municipal tree managers. Based on these conversations, the research team pro-
posed seven strategies that could be implemented to assist with expanding urban tree species diversity:
1. Engage in contract growing.
2. Reexamine approved species lists.
3. Incentivize the use of less common trees
through relaxed development criteria.
4. Reexamine planting stock requirements.
5. Pay nurseries based on time required
to produce a tree, not stock size.
6. Use an interactive database to share tree species
being grown, specified, or sought after.
7. Continue research, education, and transdisciplinary
collaborations to increase tree species diversity.
Read the full study here.
Article on Climate Ready Trees
From the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) partners at UC Davis
(The University of California, Davis) comes this article
and the video linked here on planting climate-ready trees
on campus. This is part of a 20-year study on Climate
Ready Trees that the Forest Service is working on with
UC Davis, the purpose of which is to evaluate the ability
of promising but underused species to tolerate stressors
of future climates. In so doing, the study partners hope
to assist a shift in the palette of trees planted to species
that will make urban forests healthier and more resilient.
"We share this in hopes that SMA members will
get ideas about and inspiration for experimenting
with new tree species in their communities," says
Phillip Rodbell, National Program Lead, Urban
Sustainability Research, U.S. Forest Service.
urban-forestry.com 29
