What does this mean?

• You can put the people in your community to good use, especially if you are planting a lot of new trees.
• Citizens do not have to be tree professionals to be useful to urban forestry.
  

• planting, especially bare root stock
  
• structural pruning ("training") of young trees
• working around the tree: cutting suckers, weeding, and mulching
• pruning damaged, dead, or diseased limbs on small trees
• removing tree wrap, stakes, and ties after planting
• monitoring and reporting tree problems
• identifying sites for new trees
• collecting basic information for inventories

                                                                        NYC citizen pruners planting a tree in a pit
                                                                                                (source: http://www.treesny.com/trees_5boro.htm)

• Volunteer efforts can have direct savings on your budget, and get crucial work done.
• As budgets and manpower shrink, trained volunteers can fill in the gaps.
• Community attitude toward trees and their care improves with the use of volunteers.

• Start with people who already give their time to the community, or look to citizen-planners, Master Gardeners, garden clubs, youth groups, or secondary schools.
• You may want to include those people that call frequently to offer criticisms and suggestions about what to improve in the community.

• Check with your local University Extension or DEC office. They often have staff or trained volunteers who can help.
• Local landscape professionals are another potential source of instruction.
• Tree managers and their crews must still provide guidance on assignments and maintenance tasks, and generally oversee the work to be completed.

• There is no doubt about it, working with volunteers takes some extra effort, but quality volunteers can save you hundreds of man-hours and thousands of dollars.
• Successful volunteer groups usually include at least 1 interested and motivated person who can motivate and help direct the group, reducing the trouble for community tree managers.