Preventing Construction Damage to Trees
Three seminars dealing with preventing construction damage to trees were held in the fall of 2001 to educate City and County employees on how design and construction activities can impact trees. All City and County project designers and construction personnel who design and dig around trees where encouraged to attend. A total of 220 employees took the seminar.
The four-hour seminar included topics in basic tree biology, tree liability, tree protection before and during construction and the City and County tree preservation code. The seminar concluded with a panel question and answer and discussion by all of the speakers. The seminar utilized slide presentations, handouts, and visual aids as well as personal experiences in dealing with construction damaged trees.
The presenters were Carlos Conerly, who organized and acted as facilitation for the three seminars, Sam Hand, who is a consulting arborist and professor of landscape architecture at FAMU, spoke on trees and liability, Stan Rosenthal, who is the University of Florida Leon County Extension Forester, did the presentation on introduction to tree biology, Bruce Avery, a certified arborist with Gibbs Tree Service, spoke on tree protection before and during construction, and Joe Kransinki, a landscape architect with the City of Tallahassee Growth Management Department, gave a presentation on tree preservation code for the city and county.
All employees who completed the seminars were awarded certificate of completion and given a ball cape with the official "Preventing Construction Damage to Trees" logo printed on the front
The Red Cross "Disaster Resistant Neighborhood Program"
The Red Cross "Disaster Resistant Neighborhood Program" is where a team of professionals goes into neighborhoods at the invitation of the neighborhood homeowners association and puts on a program that educates the homeowner in the types of disaster that could strike their neighborhood or their individual home. Some of the disasters that are covered in the presentation are fire, flood, hurricane, tornado, chemical spills, lightening, wild fires, and others.
The individual team specialists then do presentations on how to prepare yourself and your home for a potential disaster. Some of the topics covered are homeowners insurance and what kind of coverage you should have for various emergencies. An insurance specialist from the state insurance department presents this topic. Another topic that is covered is weather, which is presented by one of the local TV weather personalities. Another topic that is presented is "some basics on how to determine if you have hazardous trees in your yard". This is a slide presentation that is put on the City Urban Forester that shows common symptoms for a homeowner to look for in doing inspections of their trees. The emphasis of this presentation is to give the homeowner enough knowledge so if they determine anything out of the ordinary with their trees they will call a qualified arborist.
The program is concluded by a drawing where the Red Cross gives away flashlights, rain suits, rain ponchos, etc. to the program attendees.
Mini-Directory of Tree Protection Techniques
What Every Builder Should Know...
- The roots are the most important part of a tree.
- Tree roots must have oxygen in order to function. Covering roots with soil, paving, or water can deprive roots of vital oxygen supplies.
- The key feeder roots of trees are in the top 6-12 inches of soil. The myth of "deep rooted trees" is just that: a myth. Even side transport roots from the short "tap root" of an oak slant upward to get to oxygen and rainwater. The majority of roots grow upward toward the surface, not downward.
- The feeder roots of trees are mostly in a large, shallow circular area that is 1-3 times the area covered by the crown. In other words, tree roots extend far beyond the branches!
- Grading dirt over the feeder roots of trees anywhere under their branches (and often beyond) suffocates the feeder roots and kills all or most of the crown in 1-10 years.
- Grading soil away from the root zone of trees removes their feeder roots and does great injury to the crown within 1-5 years. It kills the nearly invisible hair roots.
- If you can see roots of a tree which have been cut, considerable damage has already been done to the tree.
- Compaction of soil under trees (especially by bulldozers working an area, and by repeated parking of cars, and trucks by construction people) is almost as deadly to trees as covering their roots with soil. The compaction deprives the feeder roots of oxygen.
- Building a "tree well" (e.g. a stone wall) around the trunk of a tree, while covering the surrounding area with soil is a fool's project. It does no good at all.
- Trenching to install utilities severs tree roots. Remember, it is the roots of a tree, not its top, which are most important.
- Changing grades so that temporary or permanent ponding of water occurs usually results in suffocation of all roots in the pond due to lack of oxygen, and the trees die.
- Hitting the trunks of trees with bulldozers, backhoes, small tractors and loaders, or any sharp object leads to internal decay and reduces the amount of nutrient moving upward to the crown.