Lancaster designated a Tree City USA

interestedcitizen, says:

Let's get real. This is the blackland prairie, not the cross timbers or the post oak belt. Before settlers arrived, this was a savannah of tall native prairie grasses waving in the breeze. The wheatfields in the spring are more like native Texas in the blackland prairie than the urban forest. Trees were found at the creeks and river bottoms in the blackland prairie. This was not true of the Cross Timbers. Flower Mound is in the Cross Timbers. It had some truly old trees because trees were native to that area. Trees belong in parks and well off the traveled rights of way. They do not belong in medians or along roadsides because (1) they interfere with access to buried utilities (2) tree roots pull moisture out of the subsurface and impair the integrity of streets (3) trees drop leaves and limbs which clog our storm sewers and damage vehicles, (4) trees are an expensive maintenance problem, as low hanging limbs must be regularly pruned and maintained (5)it takes fossil fuel energy to shred limbs (6) a line of mature tree trunks obscures sight lines and make right and left turns less safe, and (7) mature trees are as deadly as concrete pylons and make no sense in the same right of way with breakaway poles.

Let's use good sense. Plant trees where they grow naturally. Plant trees that are drought resistant. Plant them strategically to do things like provide shade for southern exposures in the summer and sunlight in the winter. Keep them away from utility lines and rights of way.

twisteddog, says:

Stupid, STUPID Trees!!! Why don't all you trees just go back to where you came from and leave us alone?!!!!!!

J_Mortimer, says:

Let's not forget this: 8) Trees are just icky.

I wonder if interestedcitizen dreams of chainsaws, clear cutting and Hummers over a vast concrete plain...

J

interestedcitizen, says:

Purely emotional, unreasonable reactions. Note, I didn't say no trees. I just said put trees where they make sense.

Seriously, does it make sense for TXDOT to require breakaway poles in the same rights of way where trees are planted? Does it make sense to plant trees in the rights of way above water, sewer, natural gas, and telecommunications utilities that have to be dug up for maintenance? Breakaway poles are supposed to save lives, but a collision with a mature tree will cause death.

I'm just asking for people to stop thinking of trees in emotional terms and be sensible.

By the way, here in the Blackland Prairie, which was at an ecological climax as a prairie when settlers arrived, there are more trees today than there were when the settlers arrived. Look at all those hackberry tree lines, where fences used to be. In the prairie, where there were no fences, there were no trees. Those trees are there, not because they were planted, but because people failed to maintain their fence lines. Go out to Cedar Valley College. Look at all the trees that have grown up in its fence lines in the last 20 years. Cedar Valley College is built on what used to be cropland and grazing land. Those trees in the fence lines are there because the fence lines were not kept clean.

Think about this, too. Think of grass like the fins on an air conditioner. The tiny fins on the air conditioner have much more exposure than the pipes that run through the fins. Similarly, it might be possible that a sea of grass actually offers more surface area for the exchange of atmospheric gases than do the leaves on trees. Grasses are adaptable to drought conditions and go dormant during drought, while trees die during drought in upland environments where they didn't grow naturally. Additionally, a prairie has green plants growing all winter. Deciduous trees do not exchange atomospheric gases in the winter. It is quite possible that a prairie actually offers more surface area for year round exchange of atmospheric gases than the forest that wasn't part of the of this area's ecological climax.

twisteddog, says:

I'm having an ecological climax right now. It's positively Earth-shattering.