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Around 70 volunteers brightened up the landscape at a new, mixed-income housing development in Old South Baton Rouge on Saturday morning, planting 80 trees as a light rain fell. The 14 affordable single-family homes of the RiverSouth HOPE VI development - Helping Out People Everywhere- will be shaded by the trees planted in their front and back yards. Baton Rouge Green, a community organization that has planted more than 28,000 trees in its 20-year history, received a $20,000 grant for its NeighborWoods program, dedicated to renewing the urban forest.

The planting was the third NeighborWoods planting of the year around the city, said Diane Losavio, executive director of Baton Rouge Green. Jared Liu, director of programs at the Washington, D.C.-based Alliance for Community Trees that oversees the NeighborWoods program, was on hand to help with planting and to discuss the connections between affordable housing and trees.

Liu said a landscape plan had been developed to place the right trees in the right places around the houses. A tree that provides ample shade planted close to a home can cool it down in warm weather, reducing energy costs, he said. "And shaded homes will sell faster," he added.

Losavio said volunteers planted a mixture of nuttall oaks, willow oaks, sweet olives, magnolias, red maples and crape myrtles around the houses on East Polk Street.

Residents are scheduled to move into the houses within the next few months, said Richard Murray, director of the East Baton Rouge Housing Authority. Four of the 14 houses will be rented to tenants, Murray said. The other houses will be put on the market to sell at prices ranging from $79,000 to $99,000.

Rose Netter, 62, who will be moving into a house on the corner of Polk and Kansas streets, came out to watch the planting Saturday. "I'm very emotional," Netter said. "I'm just so moved to see all the people that are helping." A first-time homeowner, Netter currently lives in her mother's house, down the street from the development. She will be moving into her new house with her daughter and granddaughter, she said.

Kristina McCray, 21, volunteered Saturday with other members of Delta Sigma Theta, a public service sorority at LSU. "I never knew how to plant trees before," she said as she spread mulch over the base of a red maple. "And it's helping the community." There were some veteran planters in the crowd, such as 17-year-old Malavika Balachandran.

Picture by Travis Spradling/The Advocate
Stephen Shurtz, left, a urban forestry and landscape manager with the city-parish Department of Public Works, helps LSU Delta Sigma Theta sorority members Courtney Boss, center, and Kasielynn Smith, right, as they tug a tree out of its pot before placing it into a pre-dug hole.

The McKinley High School senior has helped out with many plantings since starting an environmental club at her school. Wearing green gloves, she and her sister, Devika Balachandran, 15, prepared the hole for the tree, breaking up clumps of clay with spades. "We didn't have to dig the holes today," Malavika said thankfully. "That takes a really long time."

Related Resources:
The Advocate
East Polk NeighborWoods Tree Planting
Baton Rouge Green

Here's your chance to take part in the "growing" TreeVitalize movement,
a program designed by Pennsylvania's Department of Conservation and
Natural Resources (DCNR) to increase Southeast Pennsylvania's tree cover
and the benefits that trees offer us all. Join us for 9 hours of
hands-on training that will cover tree biology, identification,
planting, proper care and working within your community.

The course is being offered on weekday evenings at five different
locations, and is designed for lay people and experts alike. The course
is free but registration is required. Pennsylvania Landscape
Architecture, PLNA, ISA Certified Arborist, and Act 48 CEUS are offered.

There are several ways to register. See below for a registration form
which could be faxed to 215-988-8810 or mailed in. You can also register
online, by going to www.pennsylvaniahorticulturalsociety.org, and
choosing "Tree Tenders Training".

Tree Awareness:
* Tree Biology
* Urban Stresses on Trees
* Tree Identification
* Basic Tree Pruning and Root Care
* Tree Planting

Community Organizing:
* Fundraising and Identifying Resources
* Working with Local Government
* Organization Building

The three-part series is FREE

For more information contact:
* Julianne Schieffer, 610-489-4315 or jxs51@psu.edu
* Mindy Maslin, 215-988-8844 or mmaslin@pennhort.org

Defective trees can cause personal injury and property damage. Hazard tree management has increased in recent years due to safety and liability concerns resulting from preventable accidents. A “hazard tree” is a tree with structural defects likely to cause failure of all or part of the tree, which could strike a “target.” A target can be a vehicle, building, or a place where people gather such as a park bench, picnic table, street, or backyard.

Inspecting Trees

Consider the items on this checklist when inspecting your trees:

• Tree Condition: Poor conditions include many dead twigs, dead branches or small, off-color leaves. Good conditions include full crowns, vigorous branches, and healthy, full-sized leaves. But you need to look further...for the health of branches and trunks.
• Tree Species can affect hazards because come tree species are prone to specific types of defects. For example aspen are prone to youthful breaks due to decay; some species of maple and ash can form weak branch unions.
• Tree Age and Size are affected by constant stress. Older trees that have accumulated multiple defecs and extensive decay can be especially prone to damage.

Inspect your trees every year. A thorough inspection is easiest after leaf drop in the fall, and after leaf-out in spring. It's important to routinely inspect trees after every severe storm.

Look for dead wood, cracks, weak branch unions, decay, cankers, root problems, and poor tree architecture.

Corrective action provides some choices, depending on the problems. You can move the tree to a better location; prune the tree or remove the tree.

For more thorough guidelines on "Recognizing Hazardous Defects in Trees," check out this helpful and estensive on-line guidebook by the USDA Forest Service.

SOURCE: Forest Service: Recognize Hazardous Defects in Trees

PROBLEM: Danger and liability

SOLUTION: Regular inspection and care of your trees with pruning, cabling, bracing or tranpanting, or removal of the tree.

Making knowledgeable choices about tree species for your home (or garden) is important. Species is THE most important choice you can make both for proper root behavior and water usage... and those factors affect whether the mature tree will cause problems with plumbing or rub your roof raw!

If you know the name of a tree you want to consider and need more information, you can find great detailed information at your local university Extension Centers. But if you don't know tree names, you can use some of the online directories to help you select the right size, shape, color, seasonal cycles...and even the kind of seeds, nuts or fruit possible with your new mini-forest.

Trees are vital to urban livability. Trees provide shade to cool city hardscapes, they provide watershed replenishment by reducing stormwater runoff, and they provide habitat for local wildlife -- and children -- be they wild or not so wild. (Children benefit greatly by having a favorite climbing tree!)

The University of Illinois Extension provides a great directory of trees by SIZE, TOLERANCE, EXPOSURE, USE and PESTS at their website: Selecting Trees for Your Home: BY SIZE

PROBLEM:  Improperly selected tree species is the greatest cause of early demise of mature trees.

SOLUTION:  Select trees for their mature size and shape -- and then maintain them for longterm benefits of shade, water retention, air pollution filtration and higher property value!