What is this?

• Community tree selection means choosing public trees for superior performances under urban conditions AND for particular planting sites and purposes.
• Other reasons for choosing trees--beauty, cost, local availability, tradition, etc--are secondary to these two primary criteria when choosing street trees.

• By choosing trees on the basis of known performance on particular planting sites, planners can create a better urban forest by minimizing forseeable problems.
• Time-consuming, expensive, and dangerous difficulties routinely arise when species are planted that will not perform well.
• Examples of bad community choices might be:
• a drought-intolerant species like horse chestnut for a dry site
• an acid-loving species such as red maple for an alkaline soil
• a weak-branched species such as Bradford pear for a site with ice storms
• a large, rapid-growing species such as silver maple for a site beneath wires
• a species subject to debilitating disease such as flowering dogwood
• planting only a few common species such as norway maple and green ash

• No "best trees" can be identified without first knowing the purpose of the planting and the nature of the planting site.
• The "best trees" will be those that will satisfy a particular goal (shade, screen, ornament, species diversity, etc.) on a specific site with the fewest long-term problems.
• Some combinations of goal and site will allow only a few optimal tree choices, while others will permit a large number of possibilities.
• To optimize the fit between tree and site, analyze the planting area (for drainage, growth limitations, pH, etc.) before selecting.
• To reduce later trouble, maintain "species diversity" so that any problem will only affect part of the forest.

• Careful tree selection takes more effort in the short run, but in the long run it takes much less effort and costs much less.
• Once you know what trees you are looking for, try local sources first. They may not carry the species or cultivar you want, but the consumer pressure is good for them in any case.
• You will probably end up having some of your trees shipped from a non-local source, or picking them up yourself. For availability and quality, order 6 months before you plant.