[MAIPC] Philly Street Trees

Muth, Norris (MUTH) MUTH at juniata.edu
Fri Feb 3 06:25:39 PST 2017


Nathan,
I’m glad you picked up on this. Perhaps someone on the listserve has a contact with Philadelphia Parks and Rec.

My personal view is that we might want to try to move towards something of a white-list type of advice where MAIPC or others could work towards getting these lists moved more and more towards native species and non-invasives (dare I say, that have gone through “extreme vetting?” I dare). If we could get some evidence-based information on where these non-natives have been used and for how long, it might be reasonable to give them a different designation than less well studied non-natives. I see this approach as entirely a pragmatic one (I’d prefer that nurseries produced far more diversity and abundance of native species so that they would be easier to recommend or mandate) - but at least this approach could make some inroads towards these types of plantings doing less damage and it might be more successful than a full frontal assault that could be more easily ignored and would be difficult to implement at best.

Best,
Norris

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Norris Z. Muth, Associate Professor of Biology
muth at juniata.edu<mailto:muth at juniata.edu>

office: 1054 VonLiebig Center for Science
Office Hours Spring 2017
M&F 11-noon,  T 2-2:30, Th 1-2:30, or by appointment

Juniata College
1700 Moore St.
Huntingdon, PA 16652
tel: 814-641-3632
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From: Nathan Hartshorne <nshartshorne at gmail.com<mailto:nshartshorne at gmail.com>>
Date: Thursday, February 2, 2017 at 5:05 PM
To: "MAIPC Listserve (maipc at lists.maipc.org<mailto:maipc at lists.maipc.org>)" <maipc at lists.maipc.org<mailto:maipc at lists.maipc.org>>
Subject: [MAIPC] Philly Street Trees

Hi all,

My roommate was applying for an internship with them and came across the list of approved Philly street trees.  Recently Philly has made a push for more planting similar to NYC's.  Well, she knows a lot about invasives due to her proximity to me talking about them.  We were very disappointed to find a number of non-natives (regionally non-native as well).  Other than crabapples (which I can't tell what species they are since they are all cultivars), I didn't immediately recognize any as commonly naturalizing, but as we all know that doesn't mean much for the future, and doesn't do as much for the environment anyways.

So I was wondering what we could do as an organization (aside from me writing a letter to them since I live here).  An impact here could make a huge difference given the geographical size of the city.  Perhaps any contacts with NYC million trees program could be useful.  Here is the list:
http://www.phila.gov/ParksandRecreation/environment/Documents/PPR%20Approved%20Street%20Tree%20List.pdf

Nathan


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