The best time to plant a tree is 25 years ago

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post Kansas City has what is classified as a "Mature Urban Forest". That means the majority of our street trees are aging and in decline. They won't all die tomorrow, but most of them will fade during this generation. It is unfortunate that a city with a proud history of parks and boulevards has no Street Tree Master Plan. Kansas City has a street tree policy, but it takes more than a few pages of guidelines to foster a healthy urban forest for future generations. Did you know it is against city ordinance for private citizens to plant anything in the area between the sidewalk and the street? That space is considered public ground and therefore limited in its utilization. The trees that do grow in the parkway are the responsibility of the City. It's ironic that so many Kansas Citians unknowingly break the law by planting their own saplings at a fraction of the cost of what the City incurs doing it "legally." Why is it so expensive for the City to plant a tree? The simple answer is policy. It's the policy of the City Forester to require all trees planted in public parkways to be of a certain size. It's also policy that due to budget cuts and politics, the City no longer maintains its own tree nursery. Most saplings planted by the City are purchased from a private nursery. If the City Forester would relax the current policy that requires any tree planted on a right-of-way have a two inch caliper, we could save significant dollars by planting cheaper trees. A 2 inch caliper tree is about 6 foot tall and can go for around 500 to 700 dollars or more depending on the species. Little saplings are much less expensive. More in the $25 and under range. Saplings are also less costly to replace if they don't survive the first few crucial years. It used to be the norm in Kansas City to plant saplings two-deep on parkways. That way we doubled our chances of a successful planting, and if both survived the crucial first couple of years, one could be dug and moved to another location. What happened to that kind of practicality? The City should work with the neighborhoods to inventory our street tree population so we can anticipate when the trees will need to be replaced and where we need to plant trees to replace ones that have already been removed. Centralizing all that information in a database; species, approximate age, condition, etc would allow us to anticipate when and where street trees will require care or replacement. This too could be accomplished with volunteers at little or no cost to the taxpayers. Finally, and most importantly, we plant saplings. Lots of them. Anywhere we can find a spare patch of dirt. On seldom used public land, even Land Trust lots which don't seem to be doing much anyway except racking up codes complaints and weed mowing bills. We organize volunteer groups and even individuals who would be willing to host a sapling. I have a couple of White Oak saplings myself that I've been fostering. We can maintain this tree inventory at little or no cost to the taxpayers and when we need a tree somewhere we'll have one, for free instead of paying six or seven hundred dollars in tax money to some nursery. These ideas can all be included in a Master Street Tree Plan. The City Council doesn't need to hire consultants, or form focus groups. They don't even need a corporate-style retreat so they can discuss what they feel they should be doing. They just need to steal borrow the framework from other municipalities who have successful policies in place. A little word smithing, changing a paragraph or two, run it by the right people and hey we've got a Master Street Tree Plan! The City frequently tells residents we have no money for new street trees. That may be true, but we don't have the money for a lot of things. There are alternatives. In the mean time, plant a tree! We'll figure out where to put it later. As the old saying goes, "The best time to plant a tree is twenty five years ago. The next best time is today."