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I highly recommend reading the book "The Hidden Life Of Trees" by Peter Wohlleben There is an informative chapter/section called Street Kids about trees plante

I highly recommend reading the book "The Hidden Life Of Trees" by Peter Wohlleben There is an informative chapter/section called Street Kids about trees planted along the streets primarily in urban areas. How their health is impacted by having no network of close cousins nearby to communicate/ suppy nutrients via root/fungi, etc. https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Life-Trees-Illustrated/dp/177164348X https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Life-Trees-Illustrated/dp/1771...

kaycebasques 7y ago
Came here to discuss the same section. It makes sense that urban trees die younger when you think about how heavily the odds are stacked against them: * No network of fellow of trees to share nutrients and information with via their roots, as mentioned above. * Dogs constantly pissing on the trunk. * Smog. * Planted in a small patch of dirt, surrounded by concrete. The dirt itself is usually extremely compacted so no water gets through to the roots. * Gardeners and city workers constantly cutting off branches, exposing inner wood to deadly fungi.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  I thought the piss was nutritious for plants?
  - atulatul 7y ago
    Not so much on their trunks.
  - aaron_oxenrider 7y ago
    As with many things, the quantity matters. Too much of a good thing is not beneficial. If you over fertilize, it can "burn" the plant. That is why most dog owners will find dead spots in their grass where the dog prefers to pee.
- sevensor 7y ago
  Not to mention people constantly ramming vehicles into them. There's not a tree in my town that doesn't have a big scar on the trunk at bumper level.
  - RobotCaleb 7y ago
    Not a single one?
    - pkaye 7y ago
      Not even the one in their backyard.
    - sevensor 7y ago
      You got me. I exaggerated. A large number of streetside trees in the downtown area have accident scars on them.
    - yellowapple 7y ago
      It's a town tradition to inaugurate a tree's planting by ramming it with a car.
- TrustAndSafety 7y ago
  the odds are not stacked against them, plants (and other living creatures) do their best to colonize new places. That's why trees have soooo many seeds. Reproduction is the goal, not longevity.
  - kaycebasques 7y ago
    Do you see a lot of urban trees naturally propagating?
    - beat 7y ago
      Living in an urban forest, ripping up wild young trees is part of normal yard maintenance. I probably get at least a dozen a year. Two of my full-sized trees in my yard were wild seedlings that I allowed to grow because I like those particular kinds of trees (a catalpa and a sumac), and they were in good locations. This also includes invasive tree species like buckthorn, which is a villain in our area. Buckthorns pop up constantly.
      - kaycebasques 7y ago
        I guess one could view urban tree dynamics as extreme selection for certain traits. They have to be pretty, and in a location that won't inconvenience humans, and they can't do anything to inconvenience humans, like cause allergies, and they have to be extremely resilient.
        beat 7y ago
        And around here, they have to be ok if it hits -20F sometimes in the winter. I have a magnolia, and it completely boggles me that it survives and thrives this far north.
sandworm101 7y ago
There are also some advantages. Urban trees, being more spread out, sometimes have greater sunlight and therefore grow faster. For some trees age isn't the limiting factor but height. They grow until they risk toppling over. So the urban tree does die "young", but is the goal to keep trees alive as long as possible? If it is, then there are lots of things that can be done to slow their growth and prolong their lives. Deprive them of nutrients. Shorten their growing season. Keep them cold. Some of the oldest trees live in the most extreme environments. Bonzi trees age very slowly too. Perhaps we should trim our urban trees more aggressively. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree) (5000+ years old, 10,000 feet above sea level)
- atulatul 7y ago
  >but is the goal to keep trees alive as long as possible? For some trees, being 100year old means that the trees are in their late teens/twenties/thirties (source above book). With that in mind, the answer to above question becomes somewhat difficult.
  - oasisbob 7y ago
    For many cities, the goal is a healthy and sustainable urban canopy. Arboriculture has advanced a lot in the last hundred years, and we've made a lot of mistakes. Eg, inappropriate species like Big Leaf Maple in inappropriate locations, like under power lines. Bad pruning practices. Planting monocultures (Elm). Boxing in roots. As sick trees come down, better practices can lead to better trees for the next generation. For some common species, 100 years is downright old, and reaching the end of their natural life anyways.
  - sandworm101 7y ago
    You are also applying mammalian standards to a plant. Trees may indeed be capable of living a very long while, but that does not mean that such lives are normal. A tree can live a full and productive life, reproducing and spreading many times, centuries before its total lifespan. There is also some speculation that trees may be immortal, that if their growth is artificially managed that they may just never have to die. Plants are different than mammals. They don't all have the same definitive life cycles.
beat 7y ago
The "close cousins" thing is interesting for me. I live in a tree-lined streets neighborhood. Historically, they chose species on a street-by-street basis. My street was all linden trees for the curb trees (except for a last remaining elm, we've lost most of them to Dutch Elm disease). A few years back, a severe wind storm took out seven of the curb trees on my block, in a cluster (and smashed a few cars in the process). Rather than planting more lindens, the city put in a diverse new collection - I think every one is different. Our new tree is a hackberry. Our next door neighbor got a japanese maple, and there's a buckeye across the street, etc. So now I'm wondering what that means for the long-term health of our scrawny little hackberry. I don't know of any other hackberry trees in the neighborhood - the dominant species are lindens, maples, walnuts, ashes, catalpas, and a few ancient elms. Within our yard, there's a big old ash, a catalpa, a sumac, a magnolia, and a dogwood. Oh, and I live in an urban forest, apparently.
- abugheratwork 7y ago
  I don't know about your hackberry in particular. This has been a topic of fascination for me, though. Trees connect to each other via symbiotic root fungi called "mycorrhizae". Any given species of plant probably has several species of fungus with which it is compatible. The fungus and the plant form a mutually beneficial pair, but the fungus can additionally connect to other nearby plants. Then you have a network, potentially with multiple plant species. The network can be used for nutrient storage (summer to winter), nutrient transfer (to offspring), or chemical signalling. ("Bugs attacking. Get ready.") Different species are known to support each other, giving nutrients back and forth and different times of year. Of course, the black walnut will use the network to poison its neighbors. Playing in my flower pots, I have observed that plants growing right next to sweet potatoes or succulents do better when I forget to water them, but I haven't measured that. In my mind, they're leaching water from their neighbors through the network. So, it's complicated, and there is such a thing as a bad actor on the network, but basically I don't think your tree will be lonely. I'm optimistic.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    Roots of the same species can fuse directly. It helps canopy tree species grow up inside of an already closed canopy, and similar to mycorrhizal networks, can spread around sugars and water.

kaycebasques 7y ago

Came here to discuss the same section. It makes sense that urban trees die younger when you think about how heavily the odds are stacked against them: * No network of fellow of trees to share nutrients and information with via their roots, as mentioned above. * Dogs constantly pissing on the trunk. * Smog. * Planted in a small patch of dirt, surrounded by concrete. The dirt itself is usually extremely compacted so no water gets through to the roots. * Gardeners and city workers constantly cutting off branches, exposing inner wood to deadly fungi.

BurningFrog 7y ago
I thought the piss was nutritious for plants?
- atulatul 7y ago
  Not so much on their trunks.
- aaron_oxenrider 7y ago
  As with many things, the quantity matters. Too much of a good thing is not beneficial. If you over fertilize, it can "burn" the plant. That is why most dog owners will find dead spots in their grass where the dog prefers to pee.
sevensor 7y ago
Not to mention people constantly ramming vehicles into them. There's not a tree in my town that doesn't have a big scar on the trunk at bumper level.
- RobotCaleb 7y ago
  Not a single one?
  - pkaye 7y ago
    Not even the one in their backyard.
  - sevensor 7y ago
    You got me. I exaggerated. A large number of streetside trees in the downtown area have accident scars on them.
  - yellowapple 7y ago
    It's a town tradition to inaugurate a tree's planting by ramming it with a car.
TrustAndSafety 7y ago
the odds are not stacked against them, plants (and other living creatures) do their best to colonize new places. That's why trees have soooo many seeds. Reproduction is the goal, not longevity.
- kaycebasques 7y ago
  Do you see a lot of urban trees naturally propagating?
  - beat 7y ago
    Living in an urban forest, ripping up wild young trees is part of normal yard maintenance. I probably get at least a dozen a year. Two of my full-sized trees in my yard were wild seedlings that I allowed to grow because I like those particular kinds of trees (a catalpa and a sumac), and they were in good locations. This also includes invasive tree species like buckthorn, which is a villain in our area. Buckthorns pop up constantly.
    - kaycebasques 7y ago
      I guess one could view urban tree dynamics as extreme selection for certain traits. They have to be pretty, and in a location that won't inconvenience humans, and they can't do anything to inconvenience humans, like cause allergies, and they have to be extremely resilient.
      - beat 7y ago
        And around here, they have to be ok if it hits -20F sometimes in the winter. I have a magnolia, and it completely boggles me that it survives and thrives this far north.

sandworm101 7y ago

There are also some advantages. Urban trees, being more spread out, sometimes have greater sunlight and therefore grow faster. For some trees age isn't the limiting factor but height. They grow until they risk toppling over. So the urban tree does die "young", but is the goal to keep trees alive as long as possible? If it is, then there are lots of things that can be done to slow their growth and prolong their lives. Deprive them of nutrients. Shorten their growing season. Keep them cold. Some of the oldest trees live in the most extreme environments. Bonzi trees age very slowly too. Perhaps we should trim our urban trees more aggressively. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree) (5000+ years old, 10,000 feet above sea level)

atulatul 7y ago
>but is the goal to keep trees alive as long as possible? For some trees, being 100year old means that the trees are in their late teens/twenties/thirties (source above book). With that in mind, the answer to above question becomes somewhat difficult.
- oasisbob 7y ago
  For many cities, the goal is a healthy and sustainable urban canopy. Arboriculture has advanced a lot in the last hundred years, and we've made a lot of mistakes. Eg, inappropriate species like Big Leaf Maple in inappropriate locations, like under power lines. Bad pruning practices. Planting monocultures (Elm). Boxing in roots. As sick trees come down, better practices can lead to better trees for the next generation. For some common species, 100 years is downright old, and reaching the end of their natural life anyways.
- sandworm101 7y ago
  You are also applying mammalian standards to a plant. Trees may indeed be capable of living a very long while, but that does not mean that such lives are normal. A tree can live a full and productive life, reproducing and spreading many times, centuries before its total lifespan. There is also some speculation that trees may be immortal, that if their growth is artificially managed that they may just never have to die. Plants are different than mammals. They don't all have the same definitive life cycles.

beat 7y ago

The "close cousins" thing is interesting for me. I live in a tree-lined streets neighborhood. Historically, they chose species on a street-by-street basis. My street was all linden trees for the curb trees (except for a last remaining elm, we've lost most of them to Dutch Elm disease). A few years back, a severe wind storm took out seven of the curb trees on my block, in a cluster (and smashed a few cars in the process). Rather than planting more lindens, the city put in a diverse new collection - I think every one is different. Our new tree is a hackberry. Our next door neighbor got a japanese maple, and there's a buckeye across the street, etc. So now I'm wondering what that means for the long-term health of our scrawny little hackberry. I don't know of any other hackberry trees in the neighborhood - the dominant species are lindens, maples, walnuts, ashes, catalpas, and a few ancient elms. Within our yard, there's a big old ash, a catalpa, a sumac, a magnolia, and a dogwood. Oh, and I live in an urban forest, apparently.

abugheratwork 7y ago
I don't know about your hackberry in particular. This has been a topic of fascination for me, though. Trees connect to each other via symbiotic root fungi called "mycorrhizae". Any given species of plant probably has several species of fungus with which it is compatible. The fungus and the plant form a mutually beneficial pair, but the fungus can additionally connect to other nearby plants. Then you have a network, potentially with multiple plant species. The network can be used for nutrient storage (summer to winter), nutrient transfer (to offspring), or chemical signalling. ("Bugs attacking. Get ready.") Different species are known to support each other, giving nutrients back and forth and different times of year. Of course, the black walnut will use the network to poison its neighbors. Playing in my flower pots, I have observed that plants growing right next to sweet potatoes or succulents do better when I forget to water them, but I haven't measured that. In my mind, they're leaching water from their neighbors through the network. So, it's complicated, and there is such a thing as a bad actor on the network, but basically I don't think your tree will be lonely. I'm optimistic.
- hinkley 7y ago
  Roots of the same species can fuse directly. It helps canopy tree species grow up inside of an already closed canopy, and similar to mycorrhizal networks, can spread around sugars and water.