Casey Trees Design Project Wins Landscape Award

12/10/08 - For Immediate Release
Contact: Catherine Handren, 202.349.1898, chandren@caseytrees.org

Casey Trees Design Project Wins Landscape Award

A new report from Casey Trees with design recommendations to provide adequate soil volume for street trees has received an award from the local chapters of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).

“Tree Space Design: Growing the Tree Out of the Box,” presents soil volume recommendations and root-friendly design methods intended to yield larger, healthier trees, while minimizing damage to paved surfaces. The report was developed by Casey Trees staff and an advisory team of arborists, engineers and designers who worked for over a year to develop the recommendations.

The ability of trees to grow and thrive is directly related to the amount of soil available for tree roots. As a result, trees in typical urban “tree boxes” tend to be short-lived since their needs can quickly exceed the capacity of the space. Many downtown tree boxes contain just 120 cubic feet of soil (4 feet wide, 10 feet long and 3 feet deep). The report recommends increasing tree root space to a minimum of 400 cubic feet to more than 1000 cubic feet per tree depending on sidewalk width, and presents innovative design strategies to achieve this.

The Merit Award in Communications was presented to Casey Trees by the Potomac and Maryland Chapters of the ASLA on December 9th. The full tree space design report is available online at: www.caseytrees.org.
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Casey Trees is a nonprofit organization working to restore, enhance and protect the
tree canopy of the Nation’s Capital.