The SF Comicle actually provided some value yesterday with a lengthy piece about a guerilla-style oak tree advocate in Oakland. Here are a couple of good excerpts
Not long after a storm, Tim Vendlinski can be found in parks or small patches of grass around Oakland with a shovel and a few dozen acorns or oak seedlings in hand. He grabs his gardening tools from the trunk of his car, and with the swiftness of someone who has planted thousands of oaks in his life, he gets to work. “How can you have a city named Oakland that doesn’t have any freaking oaks in it?” Vendlinski said. His efforts represent a vigilante approach to urban forestry — a form of guerrilla gardening that is often at odds with the policies and standards of the city of Oakland’s tree supervisors. Both recognize the value of oaks, but they don’t always agree on where the oaks should go or how they should be maintained.
Oak trees are particularly important features of both urban and rural landscapes for several reasons, said Angela Moskow, an information network manager with California Oaks, a California Wildlife Foundation project focused on preserving the state’s oak trees. Oaks foster enormous biodiversity — perhaps more than any other tree variety in California, sustaining more than 100 species of mammals, 170 species of birds and 4,000 species of insects, according to California Oaks. Oaks are particularly good at sequestering carbon, both from the air and the ground.
I know the coastal live oak in my front yard has grown from 4' tall to 40' in the last 30 years and feeds a LOT of squirrels.
Oakland’s master street tree list, the list of trees approved to be planted on city sidewalks and medians, includes 59 tree species. Of those, eight are oaks. Only four of the trees on the list are native to Oakland, Vendlinski said, calling the list “horrific.”
Which leads me to back to B'game. The city newsletter noted that
The Parks Division is in the process of planting 162 City trees throughout Burlingame in planter strip areas, tree lawns, and parks. The species of trees being planted will include red maples, eucalyptus Citriodoras, Chinese flame trees, crepe myrtles (Tuscarora), magnolia (Little Gem and Samuel Sommers), elms (Pioneer and Accolade), sycamores, Chinese pistaches, and Trident maples. This is the last of three plantings that will happen this year.
We got four of the 162 newbies on my street this week and I love them. If you are interested in the "politics of trees" click through and read the whole article about what should go where, how it should or should not be watered, etc. We live in a designated City of Trees regardless of whether SF wants to strangle our water supply or not.
We should invite this guy to Burlingame. Since the Rec center is looking for class suggestions he would make a great instructor.
Posted by: Handle Bard | November 29, 2021 at 01:49 PM