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Facility Trees
Many urban trees fall into the "facility tree" category. These are trees around buildings and other built facilities that are not adjacent to streets. Most trees in sites such as office parks or campuses are facility trees. In cities or counties, facility trees are found around public buildings. Shade provided by trees near buildings can greatly reduce summer cooling costs. Facility trees also modify the visual impact of structures.
Most facility trees grow where soil volume is restricted by hardscape. They commonly occur in landscape beds near structures. These landscape beds can vary widely in size. Facility trees may also occur in small planters or cutouts in sidewalks or plazas.
Some potential management issues:
- Soil near buildings may be unfavorable due to severe compaction and alkaline residues from to concrete, stucco, etc.
- Planting beds may have inadequate drainage or irrigation
- Competition from other landscape plants may be excessive
- Reflected heat or excessive shading from structures may affect tree growth and health.
- Pruning may be needed to maintain clearance from buildings and over walkways.
- Potential for root damage to foundations and walkways needs to be considered.
- Underground utility maintenance may damage tree roots.
Like park trees, facility trees may be difficult to inventory. You can catalog trees using locations shown on site plans or by using a GPS. The inventory and maps will need to be updated when trees are removed or planted. In large sites, sample surveys can be used to gather baseline data on facility trees. For smaller sites, a complete inventory is preferable.
Assessments should note special management issues. Also consider how tree condition or management vary with distance from structures, planter size, or other factors.
Planning questions
- Which departments currently manage facility trees?
- Are there maintenance / management issues that are unique to some or all facility trees in the plan area?
- Should facility trees be handled separately from other groups of trees in the management plan?
- Can we define management zones for facility trees based on planter size, location relative to buildings, or other factors?
Work plans
For each category listed below:
- indicate with a check in column 1 those that apply to your situation and will be addressed in the UF management plan
- indicate the methods that will be used to collect the data, who will be responsible for collecting data, and their timeline for supplying the data
- indicate who will the be responsible for summarizing or analyzing the data and their timeline for providing the analysis for the plan
Facility trees |
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| Data collection | Data analysis | |||||
| Include | Characteristic | Methods | From whom? | Target date | By whom? | Target date |
Total number |
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Number by species |
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Tree condition by: -species |
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Age/size by species |
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Management needs by location, species or size/age class |
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| Other -specify | ||||||
| Other -specify | ||||||
Outline
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