August 2, 2024 • 30 mins
Barry Ward is the executive director of Trees For Houston. They’ve planted more than 750,000 trees to mitigate run off and provide shade to buildings, thereby significantly reducing AC bills. The benefits go on an on and they even help people’s mental health. Trees for Houston also takes requests and distributes free tress to people planning green spaces or their back yards. Go to: www.treesforhouston.org.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Houston, PA. Houston's Public Affairs show, an iHeartMedia broadcast.
Our disclaimer says that the opinions expressed on this show
do not necessarily reflect those held by this radio station,
it's management staff for any of its advertisers. My name
is laurent I am the Texan from France, and my
(00:26):
guest today is Barry Ward. He is the executive director
of Trees for Houston. Trees for Houston is online at
Treesforhuston dot org. They're an amazing organization that has decided
that it would be a good idea to plant as
many trees in the right place in Houston for all
kinds of reasons, including how they're ecologically sound, they provide oxygen,
(00:50):
they provide shade, Psychologically they make us happier. I was
just reading, you know, one of those studies. A lot
of them get debunked, but this study confirmed. My is
that if you just go outside for ten minutes, your
life expdancy skyrockets goes right through the roof. Because there's
no doubt that if you touch nature in any way,
(01:12):
it calms you and renews your faith in humanity. I
think faith and living on earth and of course after
the big storm, we know that pruning trees is a
major issue in this city. And the knee jerk reaction
has been to blame Centerpoint Energy for not pruning enough trees.
(01:32):
And there's no doubt that that's part of the problem.
But I know from walking around my neighborhood, you know,
to touch nature and extend my life expectancy. I noticed
that a lot of my neighbors have huge trees, these
beautiful oak trees that have branches that are hanging over
our electric lines, or sometimes their branches are just so
(01:54):
close that you know that the right kind of wind
is going to smash that tree branch into the electric line.
So we have to remember that we do have our
own responsibility. If you're a property owner and you have
a tree and it's growing over the electric line, well
we're supposed to prune those things. And actually pruning trees
is part of taking care of your backyard. Barry, let's
start about your new campus. The last time we spoke,
(02:16):
you were opening it, correct, and so this place is
really big. It has a huge nursery. And what's extraordinary
about the nursery is that you take requests and you
give away these trees.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Now you have a system. It's not like you know,
people don't just show up and say I want this tree. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah, we have an online request form. You can call
as well, but we have an online request form and
one of my staff will respond and there will be
a day when you're assigned to come pick up your tree.
And for those who may have difficulty getting to our nursery,
we do neighborhood based giveaways where we take trailer loads
of trees in the neighborhoods where maybe they don't have
quite the transportation availability, and we'll go to them and
(02:54):
we'll do giveaways in your neighborhood as well.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Now, how young are these trees and what kind of trees?
You're a big fan of native species, In fact, that's
all you.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Have right Typically there are a few. It's interesting the
debate on we get into that in a minute, the
debate on native species. But it's funny many of those
who say I should only give away native also are
the ones who talk about climate change the most. Well,
if you have climate going up two or three degrees,
and then you have the urban heat island effect, which
(03:24):
is well document another.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Two or three degree concrete does that.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
If you have a six degree change in temperature and
you have urban soil problems, microbiology is destroyed. You can't
keep planting what grew here one hundred years ago. You
have to change the palate.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
So if all of those things are true warming climate,
urban heat, island effect, worse microbiology, and they are true,
then you have to look at different things other than
what was here one hundred years ago. So we look
at not only is what native that's what we start with.
We also look at what works that isn't invasive.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Yeah, so you're talking about non native but native to
Texas what I call near native. Yeah. One of the
interesting things about Houston, correct me if I'm wrong, but
we were a prairie long before we started selling this
place and bringing ships through the through the Buffalo Bayou.
We didn't have any trees except right in front of
the bayou. They were really close to the water, right.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So that's that's called the riparian and that's largely true.
But you have to also remember that that the prairie
has copses. Yeah, there's so it's not prairie if you
go on the if you go into the tall grass
national prairie out up in Nebraska. Right, there's trees there,
There's there sycamores, and not just along the creeks, right,
(04:42):
So prairie predominantly grassland, yes, except for the ripe Aerian
significant tree amounts. And when you think about the extensive
bayou system here, we had a lot of over forty bayous, right,
all of which would have largely been tree lined. So yeah,
and so you have to respect what that original biome is.
(05:05):
You can't throw a tree in every square inch. You
have to honor the native prairie, the native grassland. But
you also it's very difficult once you have four or
five six million people in glass and concrete and changed microbiology,
change heat profile. You can't just grow a native prairie
everywhere either, Right, You have to do what works that
(05:28):
is a reasonable compromise between the built environment, quality of life,
and native species, and you try and honor all three
as best you can.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Can. You speak a little bit to the fact that
these trees are actually good for us psychologically.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting you're talking about that. You'll
commonly hear a couple of till you'll hear forest bathing
or nature bathing, and there are a myriad of studies
that suggest a bunch of things good for you psychologically
happen when you're exposed to trees, grass shade, things like that.
There's good data suggests that trees beneficially impact respiratory health,
(06:07):
they impact air quality, they impact water quality. So that's
all measurable and they do great stuff. Now, I would argue,
playing Devil's advocate, trees in and of themselves don't cure
any of our problems, but they are ameliorative to many
of them, they improve many of them, and in the
greater scheme of things, they're really cheap. Now, we have
(06:29):
grown and engineered, engineered our way into most of our
modern problems, right, and you're not going to plant your
way out of them. Right. Good policy, good engineering, sensible
urban planning, those are the things that are going to
get our way out of this. And those include green
(06:49):
spaces and trees.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, I know that you encourage Like if a store
is opening, a big box store is opening and they're
going to have a huge parking lot, which is very convenient,
you encourage them to preserve just a few parking spaces
out of the hundreds that they're building so that there
will be a few trees a plot of grass, and
(07:11):
that also increases water retention. And actually trees also help
against erosion they do and water runoff because what we
see I think of the top of the tree as
a magnificent filter. That's that's just in the air and
it filters irr for us. But most trees have a
root system which is exponentially bigger than what we see.
(07:34):
In other words, it's like an iceberg.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yes, correct, Yeah, that's correct. And so those trees in
parking lots, for instance, So there's code that says if
you're building an x square feet you have to have
x amount of parking spaces x amount of trees, but
it does to say what kind of trees. Doesn't much
beyond that. So for example HB for example, they've done
a great job over the years at going beyond what
(07:57):
code requires them to do and as a result, people
love going plant parking under a big old oak tree.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah that the birds do their stuff on your car.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
You know, anybody who's lived in Houston for one summer
knows you want shade. Oh man, right, And so you know,
I've never heard anybody say I think I want to
live or I want to recreate, or I want to
shop or I want to study where there are no
shade and no trees. Right, nobody ever said that.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I'm going to push back against that because I know
a bunch of my neighbors the first thing they did
when they bought their plot of land is destroy all
the trees on that polo land and then build a
house where there were trees. And also then plant nothing
but grass or just lay gravel where there used to
be a tree, Like they could have not destroyed all
the trees. And it's insanely common.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, it's just it's fortunate.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
It's a suicidal in a way.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
You know. And and there's a cost to that. Yeah,
you know, yes, you you're not gonna have to bother
with a few hundred bucks a year in tree gravel
is a garden and there so there goes your psychological benefits. Yeah,
and there goes your power bill you plant. Oh yeah,
you plant a nice healthy shade tree on the west
or southern expanse of your property, and you're gonna save
(09:12):
way more money in power bills than you are in
the cost of maintaining that tree over the years.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Oh, there's no doubt about that, because you're talking long
term exactly. We were talking about how you have a
nursery and you're giving away these trees. You put them
on trailers and pull them out. Obviously these are young trees. Yeah,
that's what's interesting about trees. They are a long term investment.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
That's exactly right. The trees we're planting now, Yeah, their
biggest benefits are going to be for our grandkids.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, that's right. And it's it's kind of it's difficult
for humanity to think that way because we are not
good at thinking. Well, our lifespan is really as far
as animals that's concerned, our life span is fairly impressive
and getting better. But that's not even the blink of
an eye and the time that nature deals with things.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
And of course elected officials tend to think, you know,
they think in.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
And for yourself, Yeah, which is just ridiculous in a
lot of ways. And well, there's also.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Often there's a disconnect between elected officials, who by and
large say we love trees, we need more of them,
and the ensconced bureaucrats who often quietly have to deal
with a maintenance on them. And I sympathize a little
bit because you may have an elect official says we're
(10:28):
going to plant you know, you had a couple of
years ago the presidential administration saying we're going to do
a billion trees. Right, Well, okay, where's the know how
to grow them, plant them, care for them for the
next thirty to fifty years. Right, All of those costs
has to be born somewhere. So these things when they are,
(10:48):
when they're brought about for politically motivated reasons, they are,
they can cause more problems than they solve.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Well that about it. Just generally the job of the
government is to cause more problem than solving. Look at
the national debt. I mean, that's just a constant reminder
of all the stupid decisions they made and the stupid
decisions they're making, and the stupid decisions they're going to make.
We're just we get the politicians we deserve, and that's
all I'll say about that. You're listening to Houston, PA
Houston's Public Affairs Show. My name is Laurent, my guest
(11:18):
is Barry Ward. He is the executive director of Trees
for Houston. They're online at Trees for Houston dot org.
Trees for Houston dot org. Since your inception, you've planted
over seven hundreds.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Seven hundreds, planted or given away about three quarters of
a million trees.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, which is seems like an enormous achievement.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
It feels like it.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, And that's a badge of you should have like
a you should have one of those electronical apples that
counts up the trees you plant so that it gets bigger.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
And bigger every day, a trio dometer.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
We were talking about mitigating runoff and how planting trees
is part of the way we can be better stewards
of our natural environment. One of my favorite bad decisions
made by the Houston government generations ago was to pour
concrete walls along a bunch of our bayous. If you
(12:17):
there's they're still out there along wide O Bayou, you
can still see these concrete walls. That has a terrific
effect and that it accelerates the flow of the water
because obviously, if you have a muddy bank that is
full of roots that are sticking out the water can't
just pouring concrete reduces that to a freeway and eventually
the concrete wall ends and that water which has been
(12:40):
accelerated weighs an unimaginable amount of of of weight. It's
it's millions of tons of pressure and energy that plows
into the now unprotected bank and it winds, winds the
byo of that area. It picks up a bunch of silt,
and of course it removes the nutrients from the plants
(13:02):
that live right there. They die recession.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
There's no more beneficial deposits of what they would call
alluvial soil.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah, oh, I like that word.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
It's alluvial is the word alluvian would be the noun.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
It's what you like.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
And so the other thing about when when you concrete
up your waterway, uh, it moves through the waterway much
much faster. There's no more absorption and there's no more
meandering river. So whatever's downstream is going to get a
bullus of water that instead of millions of gallons is
now tens of millions of gallons, and they're getting it
(13:35):
much quicker. So you know, you can fight nature, you
could try and go with it, right, And so I
think I think they're getting wiser about that.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I like better the action that you can fail to
fight nature or you can go with it and succeed
with it because there's no These are forces that are
beyond our comprehension.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
There was an interesting study done in England, Oh, probably
ten twelve years there were some historic floods in the
north of England. You can't totally fix a flood problem
by planting trees, but given the right soil types, in
the right trees, if you planted about ten percent of
the floodplain in trees, you could get about a two
(14:18):
percent reduction or increase rather in soil absorption or water absorption. Yeah,
that sounds low, extra so, but think about two percent.
You know, if yeah, two percent of a trillion gallons
in an event like Harvey. It's a lot of gallons, right,
and so if that saved five hundred houses, think of
(14:39):
the insurance bill that wouldn't have to be paid.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Right. How much does it cost a plant a tree
on average? Can you put a number on that?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah? Absolutely, So if you were going to plant ten trees,
you'd pay about one hundred and fifty bucks per tree
because you're given a decent sized tree, and then you
would spend another one hundred and fifty bucks over the
short term of that tree to keep it alive. Yeah,
so call it three hundred bucks a tree.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Wow, So you're really talking a few thousand dollars, right, Yeah,
for two trees to save maybe hundreds of houses potentially possibly, Right,
even if it's just a few dozens, you're still ahead.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Well, we can be optimistic and say that, right.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
More so, you know you could do that on one
hundred acres. Maybe you plant ten acres worth of trees and.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Grass too, right, because is a great way. Their root
system are also important and keeping soil in place.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
It is true. Unfortunately in our area you have an
almost unique type of clay here. Yeah, and the root
system on our native grasses are not like on the
super shallow because of the nature of our clay and
a high water table. So it's not like when you
go to Iowa and you get a six foot root
on a piece of ground.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Really, it's not like that.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Same in California in the Great Central Valley there, you
might you know, some of their oak trees will have
a thirty foot tap roote.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I had no idea, Oh trees, Yeah, I didn't know.
The grass will go that deep.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Think was six to eight feet? Wow, they have to because.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Of water I could have guessed three feet at most. Wow,
that's impressive.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
So it has to do with the type of soil,
It has to do with the kind of rain we get.
Torrential rain has to do with a lot of things. Now,
the other thing is post Colombian exchange. What's that fourteen
ninety two. Once you've established connection permanent connections in Americas
and Europe, biological materials going, oh yeah, let's go in
(16:29):
both directions.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Right, including horses, which changes the biological biome because the
horses are not pooping on the ground and that changes sore.
People don't realize this, but there were no horses here
until the Europeans.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Well, ironically, horses evolved in North America and they were gone.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Really, I didn't know they.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Evolved here and then only survived in Asia and then.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
So after during Pangaea when we were all one continent. Wow,
I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah, that is extraordinary. So in any event, you can't
you can't keep a pure native prairie anymore because it's
just wind blown in So it's great idea, and you
want to save as much of that native material as possible.
But the idea, it's just like our forest you mentioned
invasive trees, you know, the idea of getting tallows out
(17:19):
of Southeast Texas. You know, that's just it's not possible.
Getting the the Bradford pears out of Appalachia now, you know,
it's just not possible. You have to have realistic goals
and and realistic assessments of what you can do with
natural remedies. You can do a lot. They tend to
be affordable, They tend to be cheaper than engineering solutions.
(17:40):
But the idea that you can't that you can do
everything we want, need, or want to do without engineering.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
No, No, that's unreasonable.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
It is unreasonable.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, that's just pipe that's a pipe dream. That's glue
yourself on the floor dumb.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Did you hear about the glue yourself on the floor
portion incident where they left them? Uh?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I just saw that today and then it was related
to there's some people that glued themselves to an airport,
so they canceled a bunch of flights. But yeah, these
people glued themselves to the floor of a Porsche exhibit,
like there is an exhibition of the new cars, and
within two hours they were asking for water and a
privacy tense because they wanted to go to the bathroom.
This is you're you're these people were retarded. It's it's
(18:26):
it's it's dumb, beyond imagination. That's a little political and
all that.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
So respect their right to an opinion, but that doesn't
move the dial.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
That's not an opinion. That is literally interfering with people's lives.
It's also trespassing. It's it's just breaking all kinds of
laws and human decencies.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
It does not anybody in the middle.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
No exactly. If anything, it'll move people away from what
you're trying to do and what you're what they're trying
to do is is pure fantasy. This is people that
are completely indoctrinated by the media. Uh huh. You should
never believe anything you hear in the media, including the show.
Double check everything we say. Uh you no, it's it's
it's ridiculous. You're listening to Houston PA, Houston's Public Affairs show.
(19:12):
My name is laurent I always tell the truth, and
my guest is Barry Ward. Barry Ward is the executive
director of Trees for Houston. Their website is Trees for
Houston dot org. Trees for Houston dot org. Actually, Berry,
one of the reasons that I'm able to have you
on the show is that even though we're talking about
(19:32):
ecology and subjects which are politicized and have become very controversial,
what you're doing is it feels very apolitical because it's
something that most people can understand right away. It's something
that we can all do. It's what I call the
boots on the ground kind of activism. The sec listen.
(19:52):
Maybe global warming is real, maybe it's not. We don't
want we're staying away from that discussion, which is poisonous,
and instead we're saying, yeah, but we do know that
we are doing things to poison our environment and we
don't have to. We know that people throw their trash
out the car window and we don't have to tolerate that.
And we also know that if you're going to build
(20:13):
a house, you don't need to destroy every tree on
the property. You just clear the amount of space you
need for your beautiful house, and you keep the other
trees there to keep yourself sane, and it gets yourself
some shade. And as my mom likes to say, every
tree is its own little world. It's its own little biome.
It's a little it's kind of like a little planet.
(20:34):
And we never talk about insects and how crucial they are.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So there's a word for that. It's called a microbiome. Yes,
and trees do that and every single one of them. Yeah,
they create a little microbiome. And so trees are really
good at that. And so your little garden with your
little tree, yourpl patch of green, is exactly that. It's
a microbiome for a home for insects and created and
in the soil as well. It really helps the microbiology
that you can't even.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
See and ridges native species to grow, which means the
birds come in because the birds need native species to feed.
That's why they're here. They evolved to eat the berries
that grow on the trees that are native to this area.
The birds also eat a ton of bugs, and then
(21:18):
you bring in lizards, they eat a bunch of But
if you think about a tree, it's kind of like
an anti mosquito net in a way. It helps a
bunch of organisms destroy the worst animal on the planet,
the mosquito, which kills more people than every hilaria. That's right, Yeah,
the mosquito is the most deadly creature on the planet.
We think of lions and sharks. Yeah, they're amateurs compared
(21:40):
to the mosquitoes. Bats are an amazing tool that we
have in our favor in this town. Under the wall
bridge there's a colony of two hundred and fifty to
three hundred thousand bats. If you've ever walked around there
after dusk, you need the sun has to set. They
wait for Some of them that are really hungry, they
go off before or the sun is gone, but you
(22:01):
really want the sun to be gone from the horizon,
and those bats will swirl out from under the bridge.
And whereas when you ride your bike under that bridge
just before sunset, you need to keep your eyes and
mouth closed practically, otherwise you're gonna ingest a bunch of
bugs that are there eating the guano. After those bats
have swirled out, there's not a bug in the air,
not one. It's extraordinary. You can sit there on the
(22:24):
grass there will not be a mosquito bite in your experience.
So it's just a consideration of how beautifully balanced nature
is and how beautifully reckless we have been and crashing
into that balance and throwing it out of balance. I
also love the discussion the trees are home to both
parasites that everybody knows through these organisms that attach themselves
(22:47):
to the tree and take their life force from the tree.
Their vampires. Basically, they suck the life out of the tree,
and we try to kill those. But they are also
home to epiphytes. And epiphytes are organisms that also attached
themselves to the trees, but they don't take their life
of force from the tree. They collect water they range
(23:07):
down from the tree. The tree, of course transforms that
water as it goes through the leaves and down the bark,
and that's what those epiphytes will gather, and they actually
give back to the tree because as the epiphyte transforms
that water as it ingests it and grows from it,
the water runoff from the epiphyte gets into the root
(23:27):
system of the tree and is beneficial. Talk about it's
just insane.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Many people who like houseplants will be familiar with bromeliads.
They're very common. That's an epiphyte. So if somebody thinks
that epiphyt is some really strange theory, Now you see
them all the time in houses, and you'll see them.
Some of the mosses we see hanging are epiphytic as well. Yeah,
so you see this stuff all the time. It is
a fascinating part of the food web.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
And you've already mentioned this. You can significantly lower your
air conditioning bill.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Oh yes, yeah, so if you plant shade trees on
typically on the south or west sides of your building,
then you can in the summer significantly reduce your power bills.
And that the I won't give out numbers because those
very so widely, but it's significant and it's real. Center
(24:18):
Point actually has a program where they give away trees
called they have an what's called an energy Saving tree program,
and they work with us in the Arbor Foundation to
give away trees to their clients specifically with the purpose
of planting around their house in a safe manner for
energy savings.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And we have to come back to that subject since
you mentioned Center Point. They have a responsibility for trimming
the trees to make sure that there are no unnecessary
accidents during a big storm. But that is a responsibility
that we and our neighbors share. The trees on our
property need to be cared for because we live in
an urban environment. Unfortunately, we can't just let the tree
(25:00):
oh completely naturally we have to quote unquote engineer a
little bit by pruning it. And you were mentioning before
we started recording that you're talking about a very small
expense here to have someone come out, a specialist come
out to your property and take a look at your
trees and help you make decisions on pruning and even
(25:21):
potentially replacing a tree that is dying, treating it for parasites.
You told me it's inexpensive.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
It's well, it's like any other maintenance issue. If you
defer that until your tree is sixty feet tall and
you've never done any maintenance, it's going to be expensive. Yeah,
because you've deferred it all. But if you do, if
you prune it right when it's young, you get the
shape you want and the morphology you want. And then
if you do it bi annually and then when it's
big annually, you know you can limit that to a
(25:50):
few hundred dollars a year, right, and so.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Which in the cost of maintaining a house, as a
drop in the bucket.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
It is right, and so the other So I would
argue that because you're around neighbor, if you have a
seventy foot American elem in your backyard, right, you're obligated
to take care of that. You know you can't. You
don't want that falling on the powerline. And again the
central neighbor's house right. Center Point's easement tolerance for regular
(26:22):
distribution line I think is probably ten feet fifteen feet.
That's where they have an aerial easement for pruning. They
can't go in. If you have one hundred foot pine
thirty feet away, which seems like a lot from a
power line, and it falls, Center Point can't do anything
about that. Nothing. They have no legal rights to do that.
(26:43):
Can you imagine if Center Point started saying we're gonna go,
We're gonna go prune lines in the middle of people's
yards are armed, they try, the public would occurs right
not to mention the cost of that right. So that
Center Point, in my opinion, they have not only do
they have the legal right, they have every obligation to
(27:04):
prune around power lines. Right, So when you plant a
tree that wants to be forty feet under a thirty
foot line, you know you've signed that tree's fate, or
you've signed the fate of that power line sooner or later. Right,
it may take twenty years, it may take thirty years,
but it's going to happen, So that's irresponsible.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
And pruning the trees don't it doesn't destroy them.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Well, if it gets big and then centerpoint has to
come along and lop off the top of it, oh yeah,
it really negatively impacts that you esthetically and structurally. But
so I would argue that it's up to the homeowner
to plant responsibly and maintain responsibly. Right, most people, the
vast majority of people who have a mature tree in
(27:45):
their yard, have never had a professional look at that tree.
And that's what needs to change. People have to understand
that your trees are part of the infrastructure of your
property and you have to prefer pfessionally care for them
because if you have again, if you have a sixty
foot tree that weighs tens of thousands of pounds in
(28:09):
wood and water and you never care for it, that
is a time bomb. Right, So every year, every other year,
have a professional look at your tree, and you'll keep
it cheap that way. But if you wait and only
do it when there's a problem, you're going to have
a two thousand dollars or three or four or five
thousand dollars problem. So do your regular maintenance right and
(28:30):
always use a certified arboris. This is not what you
want Louis the lawn guy doing no.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
You don't even want Louis to trim your bushes.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
So arbor care are taking care of trees. Arborism that
is a specialized knowledge set, and you don't want your
average Joe going out and looking at it. Trees are
funny psychologically because most people have lived in or around
a tree. Most people think they know trees and when
(29:01):
in reality they don't. Not a week goes by fifty
two weeks a year where I don't go out and
somebody says, what do you think of this? And I
tell them and then they disagree with me and ignore
my advice. It happens once a week, week in, week out,
because you get You see this phenomenon in other fields, right,
people who are really smart at something not being able
(29:24):
to admit they're not smart about this. And it doesn't
have to do with intelligence. It has to do with
a knowledge set. You know, I'm not the dumbest guy
in the world. I can't I don't know what's wrong
with my transmission when it's clunking. I need a mechanic.
And not only do a mechanic, I need a transmission specialist, right, Yeah,
And life is like that. When my computer's messing up,
I call an it guy.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
It doesn't mean I'm dumb. It just means and trees
are the same way, right, And so really is really
important that you plant the right tree in the right
place and get the right maintenance schedule on it. If
you do those three things, you will great. You reduce
the likelihood of conflict with your house or the sidewalk
or the power line.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Yeah. And if you know how awful it is to
have a tree come through your roof, it becomes very
obvious that is the right thing to do. To follow
this man's advice, folks, If you'd like to get more
information from Trees for Houston, that's their website, Trees for
Houston dot org. Trees for Houston dot org. And if
(30:25):
you have any questions related to Houston, PA, you can
just send me an email. Texan from France at gmail
dot com. Texan from France at gmail dot com. I
want to thank you for listening and caring about the
issues that put on this show. My name is Laurence.
This has been Houston PA. Houston's public affairs show Houston strong,
Welcome to Houston, PA. Houston's Public Affairs show, an iHeartMedia broadcast.
Our disclaimer says that the opinions expressed on this show
do not necessarily reflect those held by this radio station,
it's management staff for any of its advertisers. My name
is laurent I am the Texan from France, and my
(00:26):
guest today is Barry Ward. He is the executive director
of Trees for Houston. Trees for Houston is online at
Treesforhuston dot org. They're an amazing organization that has decided
that it would be a good idea to plant as
many trees in the right place in Houston for all
kinds of reasons, including how they're ecologically sound, they provide oxygen,
(00:50):
they provide shade, Psychologically they make us happier. I was
just reading, you know, one of those studies. A lot
of them get debunked, but this study confirmed. My is
that if you just go outside for ten minutes, your
life expdancy skyrockets goes right through the roof. Because there's
no doubt that if you touch nature in any way,
(01:12):
it calms you and renews your faith in humanity. I
think faith and living on earth and of course after
the big storm, we know that pruning trees is a
major issue in this city. And the knee jerk reaction
has been to blame Centerpoint Energy for not pruning enough trees.
(01:32):
And there's no doubt that that's part of the problem.
But I know from walking around my neighborhood, you know,
to touch nature and extend my life expectancy. I noticed
that a lot of my neighbors have huge trees, these
beautiful oak trees that have branches that are hanging over
our electric lines, or sometimes their branches are just so
(01:54):
close that you know that the right kind of wind
is going to smash that tree branch into the electric line.
So we have to remember that we do have our
own responsibility. If you're a property owner and you have
a tree and it's growing over the electric line, well
we're supposed to prune those things. And actually pruning trees
is part of taking care of your backyard. Barry, let's
start about your new campus. The last time we spoke,
(02:16):
you were opening it, correct, and so this place is
really big. It has a huge nursery. And what's extraordinary
about the nursery is that you take requests and you
give away these trees.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Now you have a system. It's not like you know,
people don't just show up and say I want this tree. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah, we have an online request form. You can call
as well, but we have an online request form and
one of my staff will respond and there will be
a day when you're assigned to come pick up your tree.
And for those who may have difficulty getting to our nursery,
we do neighborhood based giveaways where we take trailer loads
of trees in the neighborhoods where maybe they don't have
quite the transportation availability, and we'll go to them and
(02:54):
we'll do giveaways in your neighborhood as well.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Now, how young are these trees and what kind of trees?
You're a big fan of native species, In fact, that's
all you.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Have right Typically there are a few. It's interesting the
debate on we get into that in a minute, the
debate on native species. But it's funny many of those
who say I should only give away native also are
the ones who talk about climate change the most. Well,
if you have climate going up two or three degrees,
and then you have the urban heat island effect, which
(03:24):
is well document another.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Two or three degree concrete does that.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
If you have a six degree change in temperature and
you have urban soil problems, microbiology is destroyed. You can't
keep planting what grew here one hundred years ago. You
have to change the palate.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
So if all of those things are true warming climate,
urban heat, island effect, worse microbiology, and they are true,
then you have to look at different things other than
what was here one hundred years ago. So we look
at not only is what native that's what we start with.
We also look at what works that isn't invasive.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Yeah, so you're talking about non native but native to
Texas what I call near native. Yeah. One of the
interesting things about Houston, correct me if I'm wrong, but
we were a prairie long before we started selling this
place and bringing ships through the through the Buffalo Bayou.
We didn't have any trees except right in front of
the bayou. They were really close to the water, right.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So that's that's called the riparian and that's largely true.
But you have to also remember that that the prairie
has copses. Yeah, there's so it's not prairie if you
go on the if you go into the tall grass
national prairie out up in Nebraska. Right, there's trees there,
There's there sycamores, and not just along the creeks, right,
(04:42):
So prairie predominantly grassland, yes, except for the ripe Aerian
significant tree amounts. And when you think about the extensive
bayou system here, we had a lot of over forty bayous, right,
all of which would have largely been tree lined. So yeah,
and so you have to respect what that original biome is.
(05:05):
You can't throw a tree in every square inch. You
have to honor the native prairie, the native grassland. But
you also it's very difficult once you have four or
five six million people in glass and concrete and changed microbiology,
change heat profile. You can't just grow a native prairie
everywhere either, Right, You have to do what works that
(05:28):
is a reasonable compromise between the built environment, quality of life,
and native species, and you try and honor all three
as best you can.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Can. You speak a little bit to the fact that
these trees are actually good for us psychologically.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting you're talking about that. You'll
commonly hear a couple of till you'll hear forest bathing
or nature bathing, and there are a myriad of studies
that suggest a bunch of things good for you psychologically
happen when you're exposed to trees, grass shade, things like that.
There's good data suggests that trees beneficially impact respiratory health,
(06:07):
they impact air quality, they impact water quality. So that's
all measurable and they do great stuff. Now, I would argue,
playing Devil's advocate, trees in and of themselves don't cure
any of our problems, but they are ameliorative to many
of them, they improve many of them, and in the
greater scheme of things, they're really cheap. Now, we have
(06:29):
grown and engineered, engineered our way into most of our
modern problems, right, and you're not going to plant your
way out of them. Right. Good policy, good engineering, sensible
urban planning, those are the things that are going to
get our way out of this. And those include green
(06:49):
spaces and trees.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, I know that you encourage Like if a store
is opening, a big box store is opening and they're
going to have a huge parking lot, which is very convenient,
you encourage them to preserve just a few parking spaces
out of the hundreds that they're building so that there
will be a few trees a plot of grass, and
(07:11):
that also increases water retention. And actually trees also help
against erosion they do and water runoff because what we
see I think of the top of the tree as
a magnificent filter. That's that's just in the air and
it filters irr for us. But most trees have a
root system which is exponentially bigger than what we see.
(07:34):
In other words, it's like an iceberg.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yes, correct, Yeah, that's correct. And so those trees in
parking lots, for instance, So there's code that says if
you're building an x square feet you have to have
x amount of parking spaces x amount of trees, but
it does to say what kind of trees. Doesn't much
beyond that. So for example HB for example, they've done
a great job over the years at going beyond what
(07:57):
code requires them to do and as a result, people
love going plant parking under a big old oak tree.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah that the birds do their stuff on your car.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
You know, anybody who's lived in Houston for one summer
knows you want shade. Oh man, right, And so you know,
I've never heard anybody say I think I want to
live or I want to recreate, or I want to
shop or I want to study where there are no
shade and no trees. Right, nobody ever said that.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I'm going to push back against that because I know
a bunch of my neighbors the first thing they did
when they bought their plot of land is destroy all
the trees on that polo land and then build a
house where there were trees. And also then plant nothing
but grass or just lay gravel where there used to
be a tree, Like they could have not destroyed all
the trees. And it's insanely common.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, it's just it's fortunate.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
It's a suicidal in a way.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
You know. And and there's a cost to that. Yeah,
you know, yes, you you're not gonna have to bother
with a few hundred bucks a year in tree gravel
is a garden and there so there goes your psychological benefits. Yeah,
and there goes your power bill you plant. Oh yeah,
you plant a nice healthy shade tree on the west
or southern expanse of your property, and you're gonna save
(09:12):
way more money in power bills than you are in
the cost of maintaining that tree over the years.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Oh, there's no doubt about that, because you're talking long
term exactly. We were talking about how you have a
nursery and you're giving away these trees. You put them
on trailers and pull them out. Obviously these are young trees. Yeah,
that's what's interesting about trees. They are a long term investment.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
That's exactly right. The trees we're planting now, Yeah, their
biggest benefits are going to be for our grandkids.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, that's right. And it's it's kind of it's difficult
for humanity to think that way because we are not
good at thinking. Well, our lifespan is really as far
as animals that's concerned, our life span is fairly impressive
and getting better. But that's not even the blink of
an eye and the time that nature deals with things.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
And of course elected officials tend to think, you know,
they think in.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
And for yourself, Yeah, which is just ridiculous in a
lot of ways. And well, there's also.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Often there's a disconnect between elected officials, who by and
large say we love trees, we need more of them,
and the ensconced bureaucrats who often quietly have to deal
with a maintenance on them. And I sympathize a little
bit because you may have an elect official says we're
(10:28):
going to plant you know, you had a couple of
years ago the presidential administration saying we're going to do
a billion trees. Right, Well, okay, where's the know how
to grow them, plant them, care for them for the
next thirty to fifty years. Right, All of those costs
has to be born somewhere. So these things when they are,
(10:48):
when they're brought about for politically motivated reasons, they are,
they can cause more problems than they solve.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Well that about it. Just generally the job of the
government is to cause more problem than solving. Look at
the national debt. I mean, that's just a constant reminder
of all the stupid decisions they made and the stupid
decisions they're making, and the stupid decisions they're going to make.
We're just we get the politicians we deserve, and that's
all I'll say about that. You're listening to Houston, PA
Houston's Public Affairs Show. My name is Laurent, my guest
(11:18):
is Barry Ward. He is the executive director of Trees
for Houston. They're online at Trees for Houston dot org.
Trees for Houston dot org. Since your inception, you've planted
over seven hundreds.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Seven hundreds, planted or given away about three quarters of
a million trees.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, which is seems like an enormous achievement.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
It feels like it.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, And that's a badge of you should have like
a you should have one of those electronical apples that
counts up the trees you plant so that it gets bigger.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
And bigger every day, a trio dometer.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
We were talking about mitigating runoff and how planting trees
is part of the way we can be better stewards
of our natural environment. One of my favorite bad decisions
made by the Houston government generations ago was to pour
concrete walls along a bunch of our bayous. If you
(12:17):
there's they're still out there along wide O Bayou, you
can still see these concrete walls. That has a terrific
effect and that it accelerates the flow of the water
because obviously, if you have a muddy bank that is
full of roots that are sticking out the water can't
just pouring concrete reduces that to a freeway and eventually
the concrete wall ends and that water which has been
(12:40):
accelerated weighs an unimaginable amount of of of weight. It's
it's millions of tons of pressure and energy that plows
into the now unprotected bank and it winds, winds the
byo of that area. It picks up a bunch of silt,
and of course it removes the nutrients from the plants
(13:02):
that live right there. They die recession.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
There's no more beneficial deposits of what they would call
alluvial soil.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah, oh, I like that word.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
It's alluvial is the word alluvian would be the noun.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
It's what you like.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
And so the other thing about when when you concrete
up your waterway, uh, it moves through the waterway much
much faster. There's no more absorption and there's no more
meandering river. So whatever's downstream is going to get a
bullus of water that instead of millions of gallons is
now tens of millions of gallons, and they're getting it
(13:35):
much quicker. So you know, you can fight nature, you
could try and go with it, right, And so I
think I think they're getting wiser about that.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I like better the action that you can fail to
fight nature or you can go with it and succeed
with it because there's no These are forces that are
beyond our comprehension.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
There was an interesting study done in England, Oh, probably
ten twelve years there were some historic floods in the
north of England. You can't totally fix a flood problem
by planting trees, but given the right soil types, in
the right trees, if you planted about ten percent of
the floodplain in trees, you could get about a two
(14:18):
percent reduction or increase rather in soil absorption or water absorption. Yeah,
that sounds low, extra so, but think about two percent.
You know, if yeah, two percent of a trillion gallons
in an event like Harvey. It's a lot of gallons, right,
and so if that saved five hundred houses, think of
(14:39):
the insurance bill that wouldn't have to be paid.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Right. How much does it cost a plant a tree
on average? Can you put a number on that?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah? Absolutely, So if you were going to plant ten trees,
you'd pay about one hundred and fifty bucks per tree
because you're given a decent sized tree, and then you
would spend another one hundred and fifty bucks over the
short term of that tree to keep it alive. Yeah,
so call it three hundred bucks a tree.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Wow, So you're really talking a few thousand dollars, right, Yeah,
for two trees to save maybe hundreds of houses potentially possibly, Right,
even if it's just a few dozens, you're still ahead.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Well, we can be optimistic and say that, right.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
More so, you know you could do that on one
hundred acres. Maybe you plant ten acres worth of trees and.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Grass too, right, because is a great way. Their root
system are also important and keeping soil in place.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
It is true. Unfortunately in our area you have an
almost unique type of clay here. Yeah, and the root
system on our native grasses are not like on the
super shallow because of the nature of our clay and
a high water table. So it's not like when you
go to Iowa and you get a six foot root
on a piece of ground.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Really, it's not like that.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Same in California in the Great Central Valley there, you
might you know, some of their oak trees will have
a thirty foot tap roote.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I had no idea, Oh trees, Yeah, I didn't know.
The grass will go that deep.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Think was six to eight feet? Wow, they have to because.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Of water I could have guessed three feet at most. Wow,
that's impressive.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
So it has to do with the type of soil,
It has to do with the kind of rain we get.
Torrential rain has to do with a lot of things. Now,
the other thing is post Colombian exchange. What's that fourteen
ninety two. Once you've established connection permanent connections in Americas
and Europe, biological materials going, oh yeah, let's go in
(16:29):
both directions.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Right, including horses, which changes the biological biome because the
horses are not pooping on the ground and that changes sore.
People don't realize this, but there were no horses here
until the Europeans.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Well, ironically, horses evolved in North America and they were gone.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Really, I didn't know they.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Evolved here and then only survived in Asia and then.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
So after during Pangaea when we were all one continent. Wow,
I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah, that is extraordinary. So in any event, you can't
you can't keep a pure native prairie anymore because it's
just wind blown in So it's great idea, and you
want to save as much of that native material as possible.
But the idea, it's just like our forest you mentioned
invasive trees, you know, the idea of getting tallows out
(17:19):
of Southeast Texas. You know, that's just it's not possible.
Getting the the Bradford pears out of Appalachia now, you know,
it's just not possible. You have to have realistic goals
and and realistic assessments of what you can do with
natural remedies. You can do a lot. They tend to
be affordable, They tend to be cheaper than engineering solutions.
(17:40):
But the idea that you can't that you can do
everything we want, need, or want to do without engineering.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
No, No, that's unreasonable.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
It is unreasonable.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, that's just pipe that's a pipe dream. That's glue
yourself on the floor dumb.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Did you hear about the glue yourself on the floor
portion incident where they left them? Uh?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I just saw that today and then it was related
to there's some people that glued themselves to an airport,
so they canceled a bunch of flights. But yeah, these
people glued themselves to the floor of a Porsche exhibit,
like there is an exhibition of the new cars, and
within two hours they were asking for water and a
privacy tense because they wanted to go to the bathroom.
This is you're you're these people were retarded. It's it's
(18:26):
it's it's dumb, beyond imagination. That's a little political and
all that.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
So respect their right to an opinion, but that doesn't
move the dial.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
That's not an opinion. That is literally interfering with people's lives.
It's also trespassing. It's it's just breaking all kinds of
laws and human decencies.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
It does not anybody in the middle.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
No exactly. If anything, it'll move people away from what
you're trying to do and what you're what they're trying
to do is is pure fantasy. This is people that
are completely indoctrinated by the media. Uh huh. You should
never believe anything you hear in the media, including the show.
Double check everything we say. Uh you no, it's it's
it's ridiculous. You're listening to Houston PA, Houston's Public Affairs show.
(19:12):
My name is laurent I always tell the truth, and
my guest is Barry Ward. Barry Ward is the executive
director of Trees for Houston. Their website is Trees for
Houston dot org. Trees for Houston dot org. Actually, Berry,
one of the reasons that I'm able to have you
on the show is that even though we're talking about
(19:32):
ecology and subjects which are politicized and have become very controversial,
what you're doing is it feels very apolitical because it's
something that most people can understand right away. It's something
that we can all do. It's what I call the
boots on the ground kind of activism. The sec listen.
(19:52):
Maybe global warming is real, maybe it's not. We don't
want we're staying away from that discussion, which is poisonous,
and instead we're saying, yeah, but we do know that
we are doing things to poison our environment and we
don't have to. We know that people throw their trash
out the car window and we don't have to tolerate that.
And we also know that if you're going to build
(20:13):
a house, you don't need to destroy every tree on
the property. You just clear the amount of space you
need for your beautiful house, and you keep the other
trees there to keep yourself sane, and it gets yourself
some shade. And as my mom likes to say, every
tree is its own little world. It's its own little biome.
It's a little it's kind of like a little planet.
(20:34):
And we never talk about insects and how crucial they are.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So there's a word for that. It's called a microbiome. Yes,
and trees do that and every single one of them. Yeah,
they create a little microbiome. And so trees are really
good at that. And so your little garden with your
little tree, yourpl patch of green, is exactly that. It's
a microbiome for a home for insects and created and
in the soil as well. It really helps the microbiology
that you can't even.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
See and ridges native species to grow, which means the
birds come in because the birds need native species to feed.
That's why they're here. They evolved to eat the berries
that grow on the trees that are native to this area.
The birds also eat a ton of bugs, and then
(21:18):
you bring in lizards, they eat a bunch of But
if you think about a tree, it's kind of like
an anti mosquito net in a way. It helps a
bunch of organisms destroy the worst animal on the planet,
the mosquito, which kills more people than every hilaria. That's right, Yeah,
the mosquito is the most deadly creature on the planet.
We think of lions and sharks. Yeah, they're amateurs compared
(21:40):
to the mosquitoes. Bats are an amazing tool that we
have in our favor in this town. Under the wall
bridge there's a colony of two hundred and fifty to
three hundred thousand bats. If you've ever walked around there
after dusk, you need the sun has to set. They
wait for Some of them that are really hungry, they
go off before or the sun is gone, but you
(22:01):
really want the sun to be gone from the horizon,
and those bats will swirl out from under the bridge.
And whereas when you ride your bike under that bridge
just before sunset, you need to keep your eyes and
mouth closed practically, otherwise you're gonna ingest a bunch of
bugs that are there eating the guano. After those bats
have swirled out, there's not a bug in the air,
not one. It's extraordinary. You can sit there on the
(22:24):
grass there will not be a mosquito bite in your experience.
So it's just a consideration of how beautifully balanced nature
is and how beautifully reckless we have been and crashing
into that balance and throwing it out of balance. I
also love the discussion the trees are home to both
parasites that everybody knows through these organisms that attach themselves
(22:47):
to the tree and take their life force from the tree.
Their vampires. Basically, they suck the life out of the tree,
and we try to kill those. But they are also
home to epiphytes. And epiphytes are organisms that also attached
themselves to the trees, but they don't take their life
of force from the tree. They collect water they range
(23:07):
down from the tree. The tree, of course transforms that
water as it goes through the leaves and down the bark,
and that's what those epiphytes will gather, and they actually
give back to the tree because as the epiphyte transforms
that water as it ingests it and grows from it,
the water runoff from the epiphyte gets into the root
(23:27):
system of the tree and is beneficial. Talk about it's
just insane.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Many people who like houseplants will be familiar with bromeliads.
They're very common. That's an epiphyte. So if somebody thinks
that epiphyt is some really strange theory, Now you see
them all the time in houses, and you'll see them.
Some of the mosses we see hanging are epiphytic as well. Yeah,
so you see this stuff all the time. It is
a fascinating part of the food web.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
And you've already mentioned this. You can significantly lower your
air conditioning bill.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Oh yes, yeah, so if you plant shade trees on
typically on the south or west sides of your building,
then you can in the summer significantly reduce your power bills.
And that the I won't give out numbers because those
very so widely, but it's significant and it's real. Center
(24:18):
Point actually has a program where they give away trees
called they have an what's called an energy Saving tree program,
and they work with us in the Arbor Foundation to
give away trees to their clients specifically with the purpose
of planting around their house in a safe manner for
energy savings.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And we have to come back to that subject since
you mentioned Center Point. They have a responsibility for trimming
the trees to make sure that there are no unnecessary
accidents during a big storm. But that is a responsibility
that we and our neighbors share. The trees on our
property need to be cared for because we live in
an urban environment. Unfortunately, we can't just let the tree
(25:00):
oh completely naturally we have to quote unquote engineer a
little bit by pruning it. And you were mentioning before
we started recording that you're talking about a very small
expense here to have someone come out, a specialist come
out to your property and take a look at your
trees and help you make decisions on pruning and even
(25:21):
potentially replacing a tree that is dying, treating it for parasites.
You told me it's inexpensive.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
It's well, it's like any other maintenance issue. If you
defer that until your tree is sixty feet tall and
you've never done any maintenance, it's going to be expensive. Yeah,
because you've deferred it all. But if you do, if
you prune it right when it's young, you get the
shape you want and the morphology you want. And then
if you do it bi annually and then when it's
big annually, you know you can limit that to a
(25:50):
few hundred dollars a year, right, and so.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Which in the cost of maintaining a house, as a
drop in the bucket.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
It is right, and so the other So I would
argue that because you're around neighbor, if you have a
seventy foot American elem in your backyard, right, you're obligated
to take care of that. You know you can't. You
don't want that falling on the powerline. And again the
central neighbor's house right. Center Point's easement tolerance for regular
(26:22):
distribution line I think is probably ten feet fifteen feet.
That's where they have an aerial easement for pruning. They
can't go in. If you have one hundred foot pine
thirty feet away, which seems like a lot from a
power line, and it falls, Center Point can't do anything
about that. Nothing. They have no legal rights to do that.
(26:43):
Can you imagine if Center Point started saying we're gonna go,
We're gonna go prune lines in the middle of people's
yards are armed, they try, the public would occurs right
not to mention the cost of that right. So that
Center Point, in my opinion, they have not only do
they have the legal right, they have every obligation to
(27:04):
prune around power lines. Right, So when you plant a
tree that wants to be forty feet under a thirty
foot line, you know you've signed that tree's fate, or
you've signed the fate of that power line sooner or later. Right,
it may take twenty years, it may take thirty years,
but it's going to happen, So that's irresponsible.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
And pruning the trees don't it doesn't destroy them.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Well, if it gets big and then centerpoint has to
come along and lop off the top of it, oh yeah,
it really negatively impacts that you esthetically and structurally. But
so I would argue that it's up to the homeowner
to plant responsibly and maintain responsibly. Right, most people, the
vast majority of people who have a mature tree in
(27:45):
their yard, have never had a professional look at that tree.
And that's what needs to change. People have to understand
that your trees are part of the infrastructure of your
property and you have to prefer pfessionally care for them
because if you have again, if you have a sixty
foot tree that weighs tens of thousands of pounds in
(28:09):
wood and water and you never care for it, that
is a time bomb. Right, So every year, every other year,
have a professional look at your tree, and you'll keep
it cheap that way. But if you wait and only
do it when there's a problem, you're going to have
a two thousand dollars or three or four or five
thousand dollars problem. So do your regular maintenance right and
(28:30):
always use a certified arboris. This is not what you
want Louis the lawn guy doing no.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
You don't even want Louis to trim your bushes.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
So arbor care are taking care of trees. Arborism that
is a specialized knowledge set, and you don't want your
average Joe going out and looking at it. Trees are
funny psychologically because most people have lived in or around
a tree. Most people think they know trees and when
(29:01):
in reality they don't. Not a week goes by fifty
two weeks a year where I don't go out and
somebody says, what do you think of this? And I
tell them and then they disagree with me and ignore
my advice. It happens once a week, week in, week out,
because you get You see this phenomenon in other fields, right,
people who are really smart at something not being able
(29:24):
to admit they're not smart about this. And it doesn't
have to do with intelligence. It has to do with
a knowledge set. You know, I'm not the dumbest guy
in the world. I can't I don't know what's wrong
with my transmission when it's clunking. I need a mechanic.
And not only do a mechanic, I need a transmission specialist, right, Yeah,
And life is like that. When my computer's messing up,
I call an it guy.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
It doesn't mean I'm dumb. It just means and trees
are the same way, right, And so really is really
important that you plant the right tree in the right
place and get the right maintenance schedule on it. If
you do those three things, you will great. You reduce
the likelihood of conflict with your house or the sidewalk
or the power line.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Yeah. And if you know how awful it is to
have a tree come through your roof, it becomes very
obvious that is the right thing to do. To follow
this man's advice, folks, If you'd like to get more
information from Trees for Houston, that's their website, Trees for
Houston dot org. Trees for Houston dot org. And if
(30:25):
you have any questions related to Houston, PA, you can
just send me an email. Texan from France at gmail
dot com. Texan from France at gmail dot com. I
want to thank you for listening and caring about the
issues that put on this show. My name is Laurence.
This has been Houston PA. Houston's public affairs show Houston strong,
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