Homes & Gardens Protecting Our Hill Trees It May be Time to Call a Tree Doctor
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Article and Photos by Rindy O’Brien
iligent tree care is usually not a subject that gets much attention. But a front-page story in the New York Times on May 15, 2012 has everyone talking about what can happen when trees are not adequately maintained. The article highlighted ten recent lawsuits against New York City for death and injuries caused by falling tree limbs. This has us asking ourselves about the condition of trees in DC and on Capitol Hill. What should we be doing to maintain our own trees?
State of our City Trees
Fortunately, in late April, Washington, DC’s leading non-profit tree organization, Casey Trees, released its Fourth Annual Tree Report that provides us with some of the answers. The report uses four criteria to evaluate the overall health of DC’s trees: 1) coverage of trees; 2) the health of the trees; 3) how many trees have been planted; and 4) the kind of protections that the city is providing for management and enforcement. According to Casey Trees, more money is expended per capita in Washington, DC on trees than in most cities of its size. Yet Casey Trees gave DC an incomplete grade in its 2011 report because of the inadequacies found by the Office of the One of the tree specialists from SavATree Company uses a guideline to bring pruned tree limbs to the DC Auditor of the Urban For- sidewalk at 1018 East Capitol Street, NE. capitalcommunitynews.com H 125