Rivanna Master Naturalists

Rivanna Chapter

Serving the
Central Piedmont of Virginia

Urban Trees
Developed by D. Andrew White, “Urban Trees” examines the suitability of over fifty species for urban planting. The section for each tree discusses its relationship to other trees, its natural range, its uses, and its pluses and minuses for city planting. Each entry ends with a link to the tree’s ISA Species Rating. Links to some photos as well. An interesting site with a different perspective.

TreeLink
The motto emblazoned across the top of the webpage is “Knowledge empowering people, and technology enabling cities to support urban and community forests.” Their “welcome” says, “This site was created to provide information, research, and networking for people working in urban and community forestry.” Their mission statement reads: “To raise awareness and raise support for healthy urban forests.”
Key sections of the site index include a range of communications information (including “who’s who in your state”), as well as a long list of resources, sponsors, a volunteer match, listservs, and a job link.
An excellent starting point for a community group interested in promoting local forestry; less useful for students unless they are especially interested in the organizational aspects of urban forestry.

Canopy
“Canopy is a Palo Alto Based non-profit advocate for the urban forest and works to educate, inspire, and engage the community as stewards of young and mature trees,” says their website. Although the organization is on the opposite coast, its award-winning program is a model for encouraging interest in urban forestry.

Forestry Images
A fabulous site for the visual learner, created as a joint project of The Bugwood Network and USDA Forest Service, and the University of Georgia - Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources - College of Agricultural and and Environmental Science - Dept. of Entomology. Contains sections on trees and plants, silviculture, invasive species, forest pests, wildlife, and more, with thousands of photos in each image category.
Each section mentioned has a home page with a drop-down menu. The section on forest pests, for example, has sub-sections on insects, diseases, and other damage agents. The sub-sections are themselves subdivided, so that under “Insects” you find bark beetles, foliage feeding, wood boring, and invasive. Clicking on any item in the menu leads you to a treasure-trove of photographs on every element of the item, most taken by Forest Service personnel. An enormous resource, with over 75,000 photos in the collection.
One of the site’s categories, under “Trees, Plants, and Stand Types,” is “Urban Forestry.”

University of Alabama at Huntsville Grounds Management Home Page
A site with a different slant, this one is offered by the Grounds Management staff of the University of Alabama at Huntsville. The campus currently has over three hundred different kinds of trees, many of which are seldom seen, with a long term goal of featuring five hundred or more different trees that might be useful to an urban forester, landscaper, or homeowner. The grounds staff have a clear goal “to acquaint the public and professional with different trees that are successful in the landscape, but not well known, and thus offer a varied palette beyond the twenty to thirty trees that are commonly used in the landscape today.”
Double click on “The Campus Trees,” and you travel to page where you can decide between “The Deciduous Trees,” “The Conifers,” “Trees being grown in our nursery for the future,” and “U.S.D.A. Hardiness Zones of North America.” If you then click on “The Deciduous Trees,” you arrive at a listing of all the deciduous trees found on the campus. Clicking on the name of a species takes you to a page where the campus specimen’s progress is assessed in terms of growth rate, likely ultimate size, hardiness zone, pest and disease problems, and so forth. (No photos.)