A little about trees in the urban landscape. Trees are some of the oldest and largest living things on earth providing great pleasure and many benefits to man. To understand why we need to care for trees and what kind of care they need, it is important to start with understanding the difference between trees in their natural habitats and trees in the urban landscape.

Trees evolved as grove organisms existing in cooperative groups. Trees that grow in a forest, or in a group, are under much different conditions than those which grow in an urban environment. A forest by definition is a whole ecological system where trees and other plants, animals, and organisms support each other ecologically.

When a tree grows as a solitary individual, the conditions are dramatically different. It no longer has the same support and protection of other trees and organisms, and its growth and behavior are unlike those found within a natural habitat. There is the added influence of roads, buildings and unnatural landscapes created by man.