Signs

So I am walking home from the bus stop, after my season opener urban hiker equinox edition (post soon!) and I notice these white painted 'L's on the expansion joints of a set of sidewalk sections on E 8th St. Hey I say to myself, someone's getting a tree. At least that was my interpretation.

Fast forward to an hour later. I am outside pruning the roses. I turn and notice that I too have these white painted 'L's on my sidewalk! Whoa Nellie! Not one set, but three! One in front of the front yard, one in front of the stoop, and one in front of the telephone pole garden (it's conceptual).

Now, either this is some form of urban crop-circling and my block is about to be visited by aliens (swing away Frank, swing away), or these mystery marks are the fly-by-night work of Million Trees, and we are about to take three off that large number!

Which reminds me of last weekend at BBG's Making Brooklyn Bloom, during that windy, tree-busting storm. There was a presentation (which you can see here) by Dr. Nina Bassuk of the Urban Horticulture Institute at Cornell University about a street tree planting process/product called CU-Structural Soil (it's trademarked). You can find everything you need about structural soil here.

Arrival, Making Brooklyn Bloom

I think we all see tree pits and think they're the pits for trees and us. I've seen old trees busting out of them and young trees die in them. Sidewalks are heaved up and roots have no where to go for water and nutrients. To the rescue is Dr. Bassuk's process, which is quite simple and appears rather sensible. What's in the way? Simply, it's the higher cost of sidewalk and compacted sub-grade soil removal along with the addition of new structural soil and sidewalk concrete.

In order to install trees into my sidewalk, the contractor will come with a small back-hoe. He'll jackhammer the concrete, remove enough volume of 'soil' to drop in the root ball, replace the soil, and throw in a couple of stakes to stabilize the young tree. That's it. Done.

If you go through the whole structural soil photo presentation I linked to above, I think you will be convinced that Dr. Bassuk has come up with a better way to plant street trees. They'll grow faster, be healthier, live longer, and won't heave sidewalks.

But this isn't going to happen on my sidewalk and probably not yours. So I'll have to do what I can to protect and care for my new trees and so will you. A few tips on street tree care are available from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden along with some ideas for street tree guards. Million Trees NYC has a PDF handbook covering street tree care.