Clean Water Works
CLEVELAND, OHIO: From the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, an in-depth and fun conversation led by Donna Friedman and Mike Uva on any and all topics related to clean water, wastewater treatment, stormwater management, and the people, projects, and programs serving Lake Erie and our local waterways and communities.
Clean Water Works
Rooted in Knowledge: Horticulture at the NEORSD
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Horticulturalist Joe Dwyer is part of the Sewer District's Stormwater Inspection & Maintenance (SWIM) team.
"A large shade tree can take up to 4,000 gallons of stormwater throughout a year," Dwyer says, but problems with improper tree planting can reveal themselves often just as trees are reaching their prime environmental benefits. Joe highlights the importance of proper tree maintenance to support the District's stormwater-management work.
We also discuss how trees communicate through underground fungal networks, bringing "winter interest" to our project sites, and the potential for beautifying roadsides with wildflowers.
Whether you're a casual observer of neighborhood greenery or an aspiring horticulturalist, you'll gain a deeper appreciation for the trees working silently around us.
We also want to share a handy resource from Cleveland Metroparks: a Tree Selector Tool that helps you select the best native species for your home or project, depending on your location, landscaping goals, amount of sun and shade, and other factors. The website also features a directory of local nurseries that carry native plants.
Whether you’re a homeowner, landscape architect, land steward, or arborist, these Cleveland Metroparks resources can help you plan and obtain the right trees for your planting project.
For further reading:
Silverstein, Shel. The Giving Tree. Harper & Row, 1964.
Simard, Suzanne. Finding the Mother Tree. Knopf, 2021.
Wikipedia. "Crown Shyness." Last modified October 13, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_shyness
Childhood Outdoor Memories
Speaker 1When you were a kid, did your parents read you the Giving Tree? Oh boy, no. By Shel Silverstein no, Did you read that?
Speaker 2book. No, we didn't read a lot in my house. They just kind of threw us outside. My mom would put a sandwich on the back steps A sandwich on the back steps, so there'd be a plate.
Speaker 3And it was either you or the dog.
Speaker 2whoever got there first, yep whoever got there first I Heights, and when I moved down that way I didn't really understand that people didn't have, I mean I guess I did, but I didn't understand that people didn't have just area behind their house. Because I had hundreds of acres behind my house. I mean we didn't own all of it, but there was probably 600 untouched wood acres behind my house, so I just-.
Speaker 3That's amazing.
Speaker 2We'd just go. So no. When I was younger, they would just say get out.
Speaker 1You'd leave in the morning. Yeah, you walked outside at 7.
Speaker 2And then, yeah, there'd be lunch sitting out somewhere around noon and you'd eat.
Introduction to Joe Dwyer
Speaker 1That's so funny and you know, wash your hands at the hose. Sandwich on a plate on the steps. The door's locked. This is Clean Water Works a podcast about.
Speaker 3Clean water.
Speaker 1I'm Mike.
Speaker 3Uva and I'm Donna Friedman.
Speaker 1Back again after a slew of winter illnesses and cancellations.
Speaker 3So much fun. So we have Joe Dwyer. He's our horticulturalist lead. That's a hard word to say. Horticulturalist lead in our swim department yeah, yeah, our stormwater inspection and maintenance group.
Speaker 1Hi Joe. Hi Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3Joe, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Sure.
Speaker 2My name is Joe Dwyer. I'm originally from the far east side, in a town called Thompson which is 20 minutes east of Chardon. I was a golf course superintendent for 17 years. I started in horticulture. I got a degree in horticulture but I did nursery work and the opportunity came to try to turf and I did that for a long period of time and then I decided to switch into urban forestry and then from urban forestry to here. What is horticulture.
Speaker 1What's the difference between horticulture and like botany or Horticulture?
Speaker 2What's the difference between horticulture and, like botany? It's just kind of a broad term, so horticulture covers all of it. So you can kind of shove, trees, plants, nursery work, landscaping it all kind of falls under horticultural. Okay, that's helpful. How'd you get into that? It was just a high school job that I started with and then didn't really know what I was going to go to school for Football scholarships dried up because I broke both my legs.
Speaker 1Oh man, my senior year Good ones.
Speaker 2Yeah Well, different six weeks from each other.
Speaker 1What so?
Speaker 2I had a plate put in and then I played. Six weeks later I got back into the season because it was my senior year. They let me play. Oh, my play and then I broke my femur in the last game that must have been a rough year.
Speaker 1It was a rough year.
Speaker 2There's a lot of casts so so, yeah, so that was the only plan was to play football in school, not really what I was going to do in college. So I decided to do community college for a year and I started working at a nursery where I knew the owner and kind of really loved doing that stuff. And then, as I did that, I finished my horticulture degree. There really wasn't a lot in at that time like fields, like parks and stuff weren't really there, just weren't a lot of jobs. Not to age myself, it really wasn't a line that you went to. So from horticulture or nursery work you went into sales or you went into growing, just like I said, got the opportunity to kind of move into turf and try that.
Speaker 2Really enjoyed the golf course. Mowing grass and preparing a golf course for people is fun. But I kind of wanted to be more on the environmental side. So the opportunity showed up with City of Braxville for their urban forester. So I went there, I got my certified arborist through the ISA and continued and got TRAC certified, which is Tree Risk Assessment Qualification, and took over their urban forestry department. And then eventually that led me to here.
Speaker 3That's great. What's ISA?
Speaker 2International Society of Arboriculture. Oh okay, so it's kind of the standard for arborists.
Speaker 3And what kind of work are you doing now at the sewer district?
Speaker 2So I work on the GI sites. Green infrastructure, green infrastructure, yeah. So those are the basins kind of on the outer ring of east side of Cleveland, so they collect stormwater, take it out of the combined sewers in hopes that it would give us a little more time to treat that water before it makes it in and rushes straight out.
Speaker 3Yeah, so that's part. Those are our green infrastructure sites that are part of our appendix three.
Speaker 1Thank you, is that right?
Speaker 3This is why you work in a team, folks. Yeah, so those are our appendix, three sites, part of our consent decree with the EPA, and so your team maintains those.
Speaker 2Yeah, so we do work with outside contractors, but we do a lot of the maintenance and then we work on the stormwater project sites as well.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2And then we do some of the maintenance for the larger sites.
Speaker 1So you're choosing trees and plants and putting them in and then taking care of them. Yeah, and then taking care of them.
Speaker 2Yeah, in some occasions also working with, I've had the opportunity to work with construction on kind of rewriting the plant specs, setting new goals for how you plant trees. It's kind of the number one issue with trees going in the ground right now is through various processes and digging. What you get is a lot of dirt over top of the ball, over top of the tree taper.
Speaker 3Yeah, maybe you need to give us the tree 101.
Tree Anatomy and Planting Issues
Speaker 2Okay, parts of a tree.
Speaker 3Can you walk us through a tree?
Speaker 2Yeah, sure. So in a younger tree you have, essentially, you have the crown, which is where the tree comes out of the ground. Then you have what's called the taper, and that's reactive wood from the stem moving. So as the wind blows a tree, it'll start to build more wood to stop the tree from being able to sway with the wind or break.
Speaker 3So is that like right where the trunk meets the ground, that's right where the tree makes the ground.
Speaker 2Yeah, so you'll see like a triangular shape coming out of the ground. Like a triangular shape coming out of the ground. Then you come up the trunk to the crown of the tree, which is the leaves and stuff. The branches yeah the branches and the leaves.
Speaker 3Okay, so the taper is the part that has to react to weather and stuff.
Speaker 1Yeah, so you're saying in windy weather as it blows back and forth, the taper gets stronger.
Speaker 2Yeah, so that's the stability of a tree. Everything's made in there. So, as that tree is, I'm sure the hand motions aren't great for the podcast.
Speaker 2As a tree sways with the wind, it's just a normal function that the tree will start to build that reaction wood and it'll make it stronger at the base. That's cool. So if you stake a tree for a long time, you affect it If you bury that tree too deep, which I think is what you see. So you hear a lot about volcano mulching and that's where the mulch goes way up on the trunk taper and what can happen is rot.
Speaker 2Because it keeps it wet, keeps the moisture on there because that's what mulch is supposed to do and you also get advantageous roots, which is essentially a bud on the tree. That could have been a branch, could be nothing, but when it gets buried below the dirt, it decides it's going to be a root and that root will then start to grow around the tree and then eventually choke the tree off, like around the root ball.
Speaker 3So around the trunk above the root ball, mm-hmm, so around the trunk, around the trunk, above the root ball, above where it should be.
Speaker 2Oh boy, so the whole point of that is as you go when trees are planted wrong or misplanted, the tree can grow that advantageous root or you can get dirt built over the top and it basically leads to a tree's mortality. Now, that could happen soon. It can also happen 20 years down the road, got it? So the problem we're having now is we're starting to see trees that were planted 15, 20 years ago with a different standard than we use, and that tree is finally getting to the point where you get a. You're starting to see the benefits. A large shade tree can take up to 4,000 gallons of stormwater throughout a year.
Speaker 1Oh, wow.
Speaker 2The leaves catch pollutants. You also have the stormwater benefit of the leaves catching the stormwater, giving it a chance to evaporate, and then you have erosion control. Those are the massive benefits to having a large shade tree, and then you have erosion control. Those are the massive benefits to having a large shade tree. The problem is when we put this time into a tree that's been misplanted and we can't tell what's going on under the ground, we get to the point where we'll get those benefits and then those issues with root girdling or mulch piled up too high and you get a little rot, you start to get insect damage, things like that. We never actually get to the benefits of the tree.
Speaker 1So it's all wasted effort.
Speaker 2So that's kind of the big problem with trees now and plantings now. I think that when you add trees it's kind of the last part of a project. So landscaping trees is always at the end of a construction project or a rehab of whatever that is, be it roadsides, stream banks, whatever it is, and everybody wants to be done by that point. So the tree goes in and you go, it's planted, it's great. But we just don't take the same time that we do with other parts.
Speaker 2You think about a sidewalk, a city sidewalk, because I did those with the city of Brecksville. You come through and you inspect everything, the frames, then you inspect the pour and then you inspect the backfill. You know a general sidewalk is, I think, a life expectancy is 40 years and if you're lucky you can get double that, like, if it's insanely good conditions you'll get 80 years. A tree is, you know, hundreds of years if it's done right. We just don't view it the same way. So now, with more of an emphasis on avoiding those issues that I just talked about, there's going to be pre-planting meetings between the contractors doing it, us availability of a planting demonstration, of having it done correctly, showing them how it's done, and then, I think having the inspectors a little bit more briefed in what they're looking for, be that the material, when it comes in looking for any defects from the nursery, the type of stock we get. So you know, those advantageous roots is one thing where it can girdle, but when a tree's grown in the nursery in a pot, which I absolutely hate.
Speaker 2You automatically get a circular motion with that pot.
Speaker 1Oh, because there's nowhere for it to go.
Speaker 2So there's some ways that they're trying to fight that. But you're going to have those circling roots. So making sure that the things are done to straighten those roots out so that they don't continue that circling pattern and eventually choke the tree, and you know, having everybody know that and how to do it and how to find that crown and set it at the right level, know that and how to do it and how to find that crown and set it at the right level.
Speaker 3So if you don't want us getting trees from nurseries, where they're grown in pots, they would be grown directly in the ground and then dug up.
Speaker 2Yeah, so we would look at what's called B&B, which is bald and burlapped, so that's where it's tree spaded out of the ground. So some of the issues we have and these are bad nursery practices and things that we're starting to try to make sure everybody understands and knows what they're looking for is a lot of nurseries will take container-grown trees and then plant that in the ground so that circling's there.
Speaker 2It's just way inside of where that tree's dug. So you've got to know what you're looking for that whole time so that you can make those changes or just you know. Just not accept the stock.
Speaker 1What kind of trees are we talking about? What are the popular or the best choices for Northeast Ohio for the sites that you're overseeing?
Speaker 2We try to lean towards the native side of trees. There's some issues with that which could get me hung after this podcast. We're saying I try to stay on the line of that. I decided a long time ago that I wasn't going to go one way or the other because I alienate somebody in that argument. But we try to stay towards native trees. So we're doing, you know, in wetlands, we're doing river birch, we're doing sycamores, some willows, so that will be in the wetter areas and then as we move up we can do other shade trees, we'll do some of the maples, sugar maples, oak trees. Now the problem with tree selection right now and this is where I will get into trouble a lot of people believe native's the best way to go. The problem is when you look at issues we've had with trees over the last 40, 50 years, 60 years, you know we've lost Ohio chestnut to insects, ash borer yeah.
Speaker 2All of our ash trees, which was probably one of the most prevalent trees in Ohio, and we've lost elm to Dutch elm disease. So when you look at losing those species, you want to keep a diversity. So if something does come through we're not losing everything. And that's kind of in the urban forestry side, something that a lot of cities learned with emerald ash borer, because ash trees were amazing, great street trees Did really well, grew really well, handled that small amount of soil really well, grew relatively quickly but strong. The problem is they planted development after development with ash tree. Well, when emerald ash borer came through, it just waved it out.
Speaker 2So you're starting from scratch. So we're working on diversity programs To be diverse enough. There just isn't enough native trees left. Okay, Honestly. And then you look at the changing climate. We are getting warmer, so we're seeing trees that did well south of us doing better, trees that were kind of on the borderline did better north of us and here are starting to suffer. So we're trying to bring some of those trees from Cincinnati area things like that.
Speaker 3Yeah, kentucky, yeah, yeah, I've heard that it's as referred to as, like assisted migration, yes, I think, where you're like taking trees that are nearish our climate, but maybe not exactly nearish our climate, but maybe not exactly, but might be our climate soon and planting them here now so that when the climate does continue to change, the trees are more prepared for it because they're from that climate to begin with.
Speaker 2Yeah, so that's kind of what we work towards. So we're working with a lot of those. So like, instead of just solely focusing on red oak or white oak, we're looking at shingle oak, which is in that, but it's an oak from. You know more in the Cincinnati area we're looking at in the waterways. Another great tree that we can use is bald cypress, which has moved up here a long time ago, but it does really well in this climate. So those are the kind of trees and then we're looking at different varieties of elms that are now kind of moving back in, but are Dutch elm resistant.
Speaker 3What is your favorite tree?
Speaker 2So my favorite tree is Acer griseum, which is paperbark maple.
Speaker 1Paperbark maple.
Speaker 2Yep, I just absolutely love the tree ever since I was young. It's a very coppery trunk. It has an exfoliating bark.
Speaker 1Like it peels off Mm-hmm, I love that.
Speaker 2So it's kind of an all-seasons tree so that looks beautiful against the snow when there's no leaves. It gets a real light green color through the spring and summer. So it's more, I don't know know. It just kind of stands out a little bit more than the, than other trees it's got some winter interest. Yeah, In the fall it gets a pinky color. So instead of going into that red, it kind of gets a yellow pink hue.
Speaker 3That's cool, Just kind of unique the whole way around. Speaking of winter interest, a thing that I learned Upper Ridgewood, our basin project, you know, when we originally brought that design to the residents and city council, one of the things that the residents wanted was that winter interest.
Speaker 1It's trending now.
Speaker 3I just I was like I don't, I don't know it's going to have native plants in it and I wasn't really thinking about, like through the seasons, what everything would look like. I was just more thinking about like the seasons, what everything would look like. I was just more thinking about, like you know, habitat. But it is a really important part of the project. When you're planting in these urban areas and people are using these spaces which might be the only green space near their properties for their recreation during the winter, you know they're going out, they're walking their dog around this site that we've created, and so having that winter interest whether it's color or berries or leaves still being out on the trees or whatever, it did end up being really important and I think taking that resident feedback and that community feedback made the project a lot better. But can you talk about some species that you know in the winter are not as sad as some of the species?
Speaker 2we have absolutely so.
Storm Damage and Oak Wilt
Speaker 2There's always evergreens, so you'll have um spruce trees and and, uh, some of the pines yeah I think any of the so shade trees, any of the exfoliating bark ones are a big winter interest. So sycamore, you know, paperbark, maple, river birch, so those are the ones where you get that kind of tearing and it just looks really cool against the snow. Evergreens that always have interest, hollies, those type of like shrubbery plants that have it, of like shrubbery plants that have it, and then the winter berries like Ilex, or even Hawthorns sorry, that'll have that red berry that it kind of holds throughout the winter and gives you a nice contrast against the snow.
Speaker 3Do you have trees in your yard?
Speaker 2I have a lot of trees in my yard.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, I have a very small yard and I have every cool tree that I see, so yeah, there's not enough room, so I actually have four Dawn Redwoods of different varieties.
Speaker 1That's cool.
Speaker 2So I have some yellow leaf ones, I have some green leaf ones, I have a variegated blood good which is an upright Japanese maple, I have a creeping blood good, I have a weeping green leaf lace leaf and I have an Acer griseum.
Speaker 1Can't help yourself, all on a postage stamp.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I change things a lot, that's fun, that is fun.
Speaker 1So we had some pretty big storms last year. We did it hit a lot of trees over at our Easterly wastewater treatment plant. Did they call you in right away Like Joe, get over here. We got trees down.
Speaker 2Yeah, they bring in to look at them for risk and then to kind of assess the trees. So you know, seeing what needed to come down right away, what could wait. So the problem with a lot of those trees at Easterly is they are large oak trees and we have a disease called oak wilt.
Speaker 1Oak wilt. Yeah, oh wilt Wilt.
Speaker 2Yeah, oh, wilt Wilt. Yeah, it's spread by spores. It's spread during the growing season but it's not spread kind of in that off season. So you try to do your trimming and stuff when the tree's dormant and the sap's not flowing, so over the winter. The problem is when you have a storm like that you have to come through and clean that up. So you're making cuts. The trees are open so you want to limit the amount of risk. So if something can wait, like it's not a hazard to anybody, you kind of want to give it till fall to do any more damage to that tree or open it up to something like oak will. So that's spread. It's spread by spores in the air. But the two most common ways it's spread are root-to-root contact. So if you have one in the area that's infected and the roots touch each other. But honestly the most common way is uncleaned tools moving from one area to another.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2Trimmers on roads take out a whole row of old oaks because they never clean their equipment from tree to tree and they trim at the wrong time of the year.
Speaker 1Suddenly, you lose 40 trees in a row. That's horrible Cross-contamination kind of. Thing.
Speaker 3Well, they say that about cleaning off your wader boots when you're coming out of streams too, because a lot of times it's the bottom of your boots that are carrying invasives from one stream to another, so that was something we were trained in when we were in WQIS Water Quality Industrial Surveillance.
Urban Landscaping Aesthetics
Speaker 1This time of year, you know the seasons are changing. It's kind of gray, nothing's green yet. Especially driving downtown the Inner Belt, things just look bleak compared to maybe some of our more temperate regions in the country where things are a little more colorful or seem to be more of an effort to do tree plantings and foliage that are a little easier on the eyes than what we have around here. Do you feel that way, or driving around, or do you think it could? Things could be improved?
Speaker 3if they just like this is oh, yeah, yeah, I mean, is there a?
Speaker 1way to to do like cost-effective roadside plantings that last and are a little more vibrant and nicer for the people who have to drive the I-90 every day.
Speaker 2There's a lot of nice ideas. I think the problem with tree planting is taking on too much and understanding that there's a maintenance that has to happen to those trees after they're planted for years. I mean, obviously trees need water in the summer when they're first planted. You've cut their root systems down to nothing. You've put them back in the ground. You have to supplement that until they can get established.
Speaker 3Yeah, like how many years are we talking here?
Speaker 2So I try to push it to two and then kind of hope that they can make it on their own.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2But yeah, if you're in a hard condition it can be three, four. So there's the maintenance. With that that's a hard. And then you get into pruning. So trees at a nursery are pruned into what's desirable to look at, not necessarily what's best for a tree. So you get that real pretty pyramid, look for a tree. So you get that real pretty, you know pyramid look. And you have to encourage that for the first, I don't know while until you develop a really strong central leader, a leader, yeah. So that'll be the straight trunk.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2A normal branching pattern comes off at a I'm not going to say 90 degree angle, but it comes out from the tree. When you get a competing leader, they both come up and you get a weak crotch in there.
Speaker 2And that can lead to splitting and damage. As that tree grows more and more, top gets heavier and you don't develop the thickness that you need. And then you get included bark. So as those trees will grow next to each other, that bark's still there. You might not see it. You might think that they're one solid tree.
Speaker 1But it's not. They can't grow together.
Speaker 2So as it gets taller you could lose it. So again you're getting to that point where a tree's getting to that point where you're like, oh, that's a tree, it's a real tree, and then you'll have a break happen. You open it up to disease. The tree won't structurally be sound. So you kind of have to develop that with pruning methods. So you have that over time and then you just have basic protection from deer cars. Everybody believes that it's great to plant trees and that's wonderful, but it's got to be quality over quantity, because we can put in a thousand trees and if they're planted too deep we have no maintenance plans and you know we may end up losing 90% of them. So it doesn't serve us a purpose.
Speaker 2So we want to get that retention rate of those trees and those trees to a point where they're actually serving people and that takes a little bit of babying and work. But for roadsides I've seen some great plantings where they do wildflowers between trees and you do these kind of mini things inside the medians.
Speaker 2So I think it's possible. I think you've seen a shift in landscaping over the last, we'll say, 10 years. When I started in landscaping it was extremely formal. Everybody wanted tightly trimmed it, just everything was the same. You know, every house got the exact same planting. You had four spireas that got trimmed down to a small ball three times a year. You had the same tree on the corner. It was usually a river birch planted way too close to a home that would eventually have to come out because it was too big.
Speaker 2I think you're seeing a change in a lot of people accepting that natural look, Trees and shrubs, plants the way they naturally grow, accepting wildflowers as opposed to annual flowers everywhere. But I think you're seeing an acceptance of that, which is great, Because as that starts to change, then we can do things with medians with wildflowers, Because it's always going to look weedier than a formal planting, Because I mean outside of, like that native setting, those plants are weeds. So if you have a formal planting bed, a lot of our native plants inside of that, you'd be like you'd be pulling them out. Right, a lot of our native plants inside of that, you'd be like you'd be pulling them out, Right. So that acceptance of that natural look I think is really good for starting to see that and I think you'll see more medians kind of accept that.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's definitely a conversation I have all the time with residents and with setting expectations, cause we'll we'll build these projects. You know, these stream restoration projects through a neighborhood and we do try to put up some kind of visual barrier so that because it's in a neighborhood and lots of people have very manicured lawns, that's what they're used to in their neighborhood. That like split rail fence, you know, it's not really there to keep people out necessarily, it's really there to create a visual boundary. So we say this side of this will be mowed regularly. The inside, by the stream is the floodplain like. That needs to be natural, that's going to look this way.
Speaker 3And so I think setting that expectation for that aesthetic is something that we're continuously doing and I think I think the metro parks is actually like a good silent partner in this, because I often say, oh, the project is going to look like a natural site, like think about the Metro Parks, if you go into like a park, that's the way it looks, and the Metro Parks do such a good job with maintaining their property that people are like, oh, okay, and so they're able to picture it more as a park setting. That's definitely a conversation that we have all the time with residents and I think you're right. People are starting to move towards being all right with it not being as manicured.
Daily Work as a District Horticulturalist
Speaker 1So what's a typical day like for a horticulturalist at the district?
Speaker 2It changes. So this year we're going to be taking on a little bit more responsibilities, with a little more hands-on approach at our GI sites. So weeding, mowing or just plant maintenance, cage maintenance, that type of thing, or we could end up on a stormwater site. Or debris removals smaller debris removals, we may take those out. We may be doing deer protection. We may be doing plant evaluations at some of the properties we buy out there, just doing regular trash cleanup and maintenance and making sure that those aren't sites that get out of hand. Removing a tree, because someone asked us to. Seeing if there's a way we can mitigate that risk or maybe explain why we want to retain this tree. Doing tree evaluations of sites that might be future constructions, looking at those and seeing if we need to look at different options so that we're not losing the large trees that are giving us the benefits.
Speaker 2A lot of what I did with the city of Braxville and what I kind of look at now is tree risk. So somebody might call me and say this tree is leaning. It's leaning towards my house. I want to cut it down and they'll come out and they'll be like I love the tree, but it's leaning towards my house. It just scares me and I'll go out there and look. And then I can look and say, listen, there's no pulling on the roots, I don't see any decay in the tree. I don't see anything to be nervous about. Do you feel better with that? Well, no, it still makes me nervous.
Speaker 2Well, what if we mitigate that risk? What if we, instead of you having somebody come out and cut the tree down? What if we trim some branches off to take the weight off that side? So now it's not going to hit your house if it falls. So it's looking at those different options to help somebody maybe see that the risk isn't quite as bad. I think is a really important part of tree work and I think it's the only way we're going to lead to retaining some of these large trees and then doing the protection during construction. I've worked with developers during my time in Brecksville that you know they'll turn in a plan that's completely clear cut. I'll just send it back to them and say, no, you know, we have to figure out a way to retain some of this and then setting those construction barriers up and the protection zones for the trees you know, so that they're not just going to die two years after the development's done.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's something that we talk about too a lot in construction is the impact of compaction on the soil to trees that are existing and to trees that are to be planted, and then also like the idea that you need to stay outside of the drip line, which is where the crown If you draw like a straight line from like where the branches end down to the ground. That's the drip line, right, yeah, and so you want to be outside of that zone because that's like Ideally. The most important root area. Right yeah, Okay so.
Tree Risk Assessment and Root Protection
Speaker 2Did root area right. Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1Did your homework, yeah.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1You already knew this stuff A little bit.
Speaker 2So a tree's roots can actually extend two to three times the drip line if not further.
Speaker 2I mean they can go on forever. But that most important zone is, yeah, inside that drip line and it depends on a tree. You could have one that's really narrow and you need to protect a little more. But, yeah, inside that triple and it depends on a tree. You could have one that's really narrow and you need to protect a little more. But compaction on a construction site is massive because as you lose that pore space, you know, as you're pushing down on that, you lose the places where air is and water is, and if you can't get the water down to it and you can't have those air spaces for the water to fill, the tree is eventually going to choke out. For the water to fill, the tree's eventually going to choke out. I've been on a ton of construction sites where they left one tree and then they took a dozer and pushed all their extra dirt up against it.
Speaker 3Yes, I have also seen that.
Speaker 2So you know it's understanding that, putting up a barrier and then making sure people stay to it.
Speaker 1What's the term? It's such a cool thing when a grouping of trees their canopies will almost touch, but they won't quite touch. I forget the name of that. Isn't that so cool? Friendship, it's friendship. I forget the name of it.
Speaker 3Is that a thing? I didn't know that. I mean. It doesn't make sense. It's a thing.
Speaker 2It can be with certain trees.
Speaker 1Certain types. I don't know if it's respecting each other's space up there, but they'll almost touch. But they won't like crowd each other. Crown shyness. Oh, crown shyness, Crown shyness or inter-crown spacing, is a phenomenon this is Wikipedia everyone In which the crowns of fully stocked trees do not touch each other, forming a canopy with channel-like gaps.
Speaker 3I think next time people are trying to like shake my hand at a public event. I'm just going to be like sorry, crown shyness can't no touchy. That's crowd shyness, crowd shyness.
Speaker 2Trees are weird. We learn more and more stuff about them. They talk to each other.
Speaker 3They talk to each other, they do through their roots underground.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1So yeah, through fungus they can warn each other, right?
Crown Shyness and Tree Communication
Speaker 2Yeah, through mitochondria or through mycorrhizae, they can actually communicate, tell each other that we need carbon or we need this, and they've done studies where they basically, you know, will irradiate carbon and then they'll find that a tree is passing it to another tree. The even more interesting thing is they found oh, I forget her name. She wrote the book Finding the Mother Tree, which is a phenomenal book. If you want to read something, okay.
Speaker 1I'll put it in the show notes on our website.
Speaker 2What she's found is that trees can actually pick out their lineage. Their seeds Stop, so they can find their children and, as they're sharing, they can share more with their children. What which is kind of crazy when you think about it?
Speaker 1Joe Dwyer.
Speaker 3Fantastic.
Speaker 1This has been a very interesting conversation. Do you have any advice for budding horticulturalists?
Speaker 3Oh See what I did there. Did you write that down. You did write it down.
Speaker 2So yeah, I mean, I think it's just get out and get involved and open yourself up to all styles of horticulture and landscape, just so that you can build those conversations with people, because I think that's kind of the biggest part of being an arborist or horticulturalist is being able to express that For anybody who wants to go out. And you know help. There's tons of groups planting trees, helping in areas.
Speaker 2So if you're looking to do something like that, my suggestion would be just educate yourself to make sure that you know what you're doing, so that you're not I don't want to say wasting time, but make sure that you know that tree is going to be able to survive if you're out there helping those areas.
Speaker 3And it's almost Arbor Day.
Speaker 1It is.
Speaker 3And Earth Day. So this is you know. Make your plans now, folks. Thank you for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 2Oh, thank you for having me, this was fun.
