A Guide to Tree Maintenance in Cities
Urban Tree Management
A tree's life cycle is identical in natural and urban surroundings. However, due to the city's special limits, each tree must be carefully monitored, and deteriorating trees must be replaced. Tree maintenance in cities is crucial to ensure that urban trees thrive and contribute to a healthier environment.
Throughout the year, the municipal, city council or urban forestry department monitors the tree population, replaces aging trees, and plants new ones.
Before Planting the Tree
The tree came from a nursery and was grown for 5 to 10 years before being put in the city. This transplantation requires the tree to adjust and restore its original vigor. Before planting, a pit is excavated and filled with topsoil. This trench, which is around 12 cubic meters in size, gives enough area for the tree's root system to anchor and expand while receiving enough water and nutrients. Following planting, tree maintenance in cities involves careful attention to ensure the tree's establishment and growth.
The tree has been irrigated regularly for the past 2 to 3 years.
A stake and metal guard around the trunk provide stability and long-term protection.
Pruning is done gradually to produce a harmonious silhouette that is appropriate for the area.
After the first 3 years, the tree becomes self-sufficient and no longer needs special care.
Maintaining the Tree Population
In adulthood, depending on its location (street, garden, school, and so on), the tree is regularly pruned to cohabit with its immediate surroundings. Effective tree maintenance in cities includes:
Clearing traffic lights and road signage.
Raising lower branches to accommodate automobile and pedestrian traffic.
Keeping a safe space between the tree and the building façade.
Removing dead timber and decaying branches.
Life expectancy of urban trees
In metropolitan areas, trees have an average life expectancy of 80 years. Its structure weakens over time, resulting in dead wood and a hazard to humans. When possible, city workers cut dangerous limbs to make the tree safer, allowing it to be saved. However, if it poses an irrevocable threat, it is cut down and replaced.
Why Are Trees Replaced?
A decaying tree must be chopped down because it is weak and can be harmful. Fungi can weaken the tree's structure, producing decay in its roots, trunk, and branches. Hollow wounds can provide weak areas for viruses to settle, potentially leading to the tree's destruction.
A tree that appears healthy may nonetheless be unhealthy and fragile: The city's forestry personnel monitor the trees in Paris. Visual inspections are performed throughout the annual tree monitoring campaign and each maintenance operation. Expert examinations may also be conducted to discover internal wood flaws.
A diseased tree can contaminate others: When a tree is infected with an incurable and contagious disease, felling it is the only way to stop the spread of the disease and keep it from infecting nearby trees.
Diversifying Urban Tree Population
Diversifying tree species to adapt to urban living conditions, as well as protecting decreasing trees that do not endanger the public, benefits this population's health and reinforces its role in promoting urban quality of life and biodiversity.
Diversifying Species to Combat Disease
Diversifying tree species is the only effective, inexpensive, and long-term solution to plant diseases. Most diseases only affect one species, which is why having a high concentration of the same species in one region encourages epidemic transmission. To ensure long-term protection from epidemiological concerns, it is recommended to minimize the number of the most frequent species in street alignments (such as plane trees and horse chestnuts) while increasing the proportion of fewer represented species.
Putting Different Species Together in Street Alignments
In peripheral communities where the unity and continuity of tree alignments are not key restraints, it is best to incorporate more diversified plantings and enhance the range of species in order to promote the diversity of street tree populations and minimize the spread of epidemics.
Planting Heatwave-Adapted Trees
Given the problems posed by climate change, the tree species selected must be able to withstand the increasingly frequent heatwaves that are predicted over the medium and long terms. For example, some Mediterranean plants are very well adapted to the soils and climate of France, including holm oak, Chinese pear, Russian olive, Provence hackberry, and Byzantine hazel.
Preference for Local Species
Native species from the area are important for maintaining ecological continuity and are suited to French fauna, especially because they can produce nectar and blossoms, fruits, or seeds that can be incorporated into food chains or used as breeding grounds. Thus, when circumstances permit, it is best to encourage the presence of native regional species (in parks, gardens, or forests). Honey-producing, or melliferous, plants, in particular, can help offset the fall in bee populations in rural regions, at least in part.
What Is a Melliferous Plant?
If a plant possesses the necessary characteristics to draw in bees that produce honey, it is deemed honey-producing. 'Mellis', which means honey in Latin, is where the word "melliferous" originates.
Tree Care: Digital Tools
to Monitor and Intervene
The task of keeping an eye on and maintaining trees in parks, gardens, cemeteries, schools, and other municipal institutions, as well as in streets (alignments), is under the purview of a department in each municipality. Every year, forestry agents examine and diagnose these trees, and some of them undergo comprehensive phytosanitary evaluations. Professionals use a field notebook for this reason.
Our solution Ecoteka is intended for tree care. This service is a complete digital tool that enables the efficient monitoring of trees within a municipality or city. It was created by Natural Solutions specifically for professionals in charge of tree and green space management.
