Back from Dallas

I just returned from a weekend in Dallas, Texas, at the Neil Sperry All Texas Garden Show. Bayer Advanced sponsored a free lecture series, and I gave a talk on planting trees to conserve energy. While I was researching my talk, I came across the CityGreen Program developed by American Forests. The remarkable computer program uses high- resolution satellite imagery to analyze the health of our urban forests and predict how trees, or lack of them, impact cities financially.

The results are troubling. Over the last 30 years rapid growth in many major U.S. cities has cost a significant amount of tree canopy. More troubling is the increased costs that cities must incur as a result of those losses. Trees provide many benefits to our environment, not the least of which are controlling storm runoff, reducing erosion, filtering pollutants and providing energy-saving shade. When cities lose trees it costs them millions, even billions, of dollars to provide additional storm runoff control, health care for pollution- related illnesses and air conditioning. You can see the startling specifics at www.americanforests.org.

Many new homeowners came to my Dallas talk. They knew they needed to plant trees and were looking for help on how to position them for maximum benefit. You can find that help on this Web site. But just planting trees around our homes is not enough. We need more trees on our streets, in our parks and in our neighborhoods. We must also make sure our forests are healthy and vital.

Bayer Advanced wants to help you plant trees. The Bayer Advanced/ Arbor Day Foundation Restore America’s Trees Program is recruiting volunteers in an attempt to create the largest tree-planting event in history. You can find out more information by visiting www.bayeradvanced.com/arborday.