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It’s a shame more people don’t give a shit about their property. I simply don’t understand all the vinyl houses that back onto Stoney Trail with not a single tree in their yard to block out noise and sight lines. People are so cheap.

The NE is simply a barren wasteland of windswept prairie that is not salvageable. When the majority of residents pave over their entire front yard so they can park an extra three cars, there is no way they are planting a tree. I say give the free trees to the NW and SW where they can actually increase the tree canopy because one already exists.
 
DougB said:
It is a great concept that is likely to fail:
-the free trees will likely be small seedlings which almost always die in Calgary
-as others have pointed out, trees need extensive watering for about the first 5 years. The City seems incapable of doing this. Citizens are better, but few seem willing to invest the time and money
-Calgary's unique climate more or less guarantees trees planted in boxes or boulevards will die
-road salt seems to kill any tree that is touches. Guessing this is due to lack of precipitation to wash it away

The BP Birth Place forest was the only successful tree planting program I can remember.
Click to expand...
I don’t think it’s likely to fail if the city is giving trees to people to plant on their property. People taking the time to register for a tree and go pick it up will take the time to water it. Some would die due to weather or disease but most would live.
The city planting them in public spaces is a different story, but depending on there they plant them it can be successful too. The city can be better at choosing what to plant and where to plant it. Stick to planting trees and shrubs in places where the water table is a already higher. Dig larger than normal holes and backfill with soil. The city has plenty of soil with their compost recycling program.
Plant trees near already existing groves, giving them some shelter.
 
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The Familia said:
It’s a shame more people don’t give a shit about their property. I simply don’t understand all the vinyl houses that back onto Stoney Trail with not a single tree in their yard to block out noise and sight lines. People are so cheap.

The NE is simply a barren wasteland of windswept prairie that is not salvageable. When the majority of residents pave over their entire front yard so they can park an extra three cars, there is no way they are planting a tree. I say give the free trees to the NW and SW where they can actually increase the tree canopy because one already exists.
Click to expand...
The NE is combination of issues. Poor soil compared to the west side of the city makes it challenging. It’s also the least affluent of the quadrants. For many, trees are an extra cost to an already tight budget.
Part of it maybe cultural. I’ve heard stories of people not being interested in maintaining trees that came via the developer and even cutting them down.
Poor soil is one thing, but even in the NE trees will grow if watered. The fact that many of those neighbourhoods have been around for decades, and are still basically treeless also points to trees not being a priority.
 
It’s very sad to see that CastleRidge, Falconridge and Martindale don’t look any different than they did when I lived there in the late 80s and 90s. We had a couple of trees in our backyard and my parents watered them regularly and they become large and mature in 20 years but we were the only people on the block that did this. :(
 
AJX said:
The NE is combination of issues. Poor soil compared to the west side of the city makes it challenging. It’s also the least affluent of the quadrants. For many, trees are an extra cost to an already tight budget.
Part of it maybe cultural. I’ve heard stories of people not being interested in maintaining trees that came via the developer and even cutting them down.
Poor soil is one thing, but even in the NE trees will grow if watered. The fact that many of those neighbourhoods have been around for decades, and are still basically treeless also points to trees not being a priority.
Click to expand...
Is the soil really worse on the east side? Most of that land was formerly under cultivation. Soil conditions on the west side of the city tend to be rocky. The west side has the advantage of slightly higher precipitation and more hills to provide shelter from the chinooks.
 
The Familia said:
It’s a shame more people don’t give a shit about their property. I simply don’t understand all the vinyl houses that back onto Stoney Trail with not a single tree in their yard to block out noise and sight lines. People are so cheap.

The NE is simply a barren wasteland of windswept prairie that is not salvageable. When the majority of residents pave over their entire front yard so they can park an extra three cars, there is no way they are planting a tree. I say give the free trees to the NW and SW where they can actually increase the tree canopy because one already exists.
Click to expand...
Most people seem unwilling to invest the time and money to maintain landscaping in Calgary. I had a house backing on to Fish Creek Park that I sold a long time ago. I devoted a huge amount of time to building and maintaining a yard with 9 trees, probably 100 shrubs and junipers and elaborate paving stone edges and patios. I engineered an irrigation system that passively distributed water around the yard from the downspouts. The next owner maintained it well but then sold it to a Millennial family who ripped out much of the landscaping for a dog run and grass. I was devestated to see what they did.

I should post some pics of my former yard in Perth. I must have spent thousands of hours creating it:
-enough fruit trees and vegetable gardens to sustain the entire household
-passive irrigation from the downspouts and showers
-terraced rock garden built from local sandstone
-pool with a waterfall completely surrounded by vegetation on three sides
 
DougB said:
Most people seem unwilling to invest the time and money to maintain landscaping in Calgary. I had a house backing on to Fish Creek Park that I sold a long time ago. I devoted a huge amount of time to building and maintaining a yard with 9 trees, probably 100 shrubs and junipers and elaborate paving stone edges and patios. I engineered an irrigation system that passively distributed water around the yard from the downspouts. The next owner maintained it well but then sold it to a Millennial family who ripped out much of the landscaping for a dog run and grass. I was devestated to see what they did.

I should post some pics of my former yard in Perth. I must have spent thousands of hours creating it:
-enough fruit trees and vegetable gardens to sustain the entire household
-passive irrigation from the downspouts and showers
-terraced rock garden built from local sandstone
-pool with a waterfall completely surrounded by vegetation on three sides
Click to expand...
Spending time in the redeveloping inner communities is another interesting comparison. Each lawn and house has such a high degree of variability from a combo of factors, redevelopment of older parcels with mature vegetation only being one of them. More noticeable is the completely random level of interest people have in their lawns and gardens which have deviated greatly over time as the community ages and each property has had many owners since.

Here's a few highlights I recall from the past summer wandering around and some specific:
  • 1950s bungalows with only grass and no shrubs
  • 1950s bungalows with rocks instead of grass
  • 1950s bungalows with about 2 feet extra of top soil and decades of meticulous gardening
  • Recent infills with incredibly manicured lawns and gardens
  • Recent infills with plastic grass and no trees
Example 1 - someone who loves gardening, hates lawns and has been giving 100% effort for decades:
1677520182519.png


Example 2 - someone who never thought about gardening or lawns in decades directly across the street from #1:
1677520588268.png


Example 3 - Someone who hates gardening and lawns and has 1000x the wealth as the rest of us. Glad this guy is saving on the maintenance costs with the plastic lawn, that should help with the $50,000 / month mortgage payments :)
1677520357753.png


Example 3 is the funniest to me - I'll never understand the extremely wealthy's choices. There's a middle ground between cheap zero maintenance plastic and being a passionate DIY gardener. Especially if the goal is to show-off your wealth a bit. Just hire someone to take care of it for you.

EDIT - notably, all these examples are within a kilometre of each other. Climate is a thing that effects trees and what plants we can grow, but clearly it's not the actual critical issue to why we do or don't have trees or vegetation.
 
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CBBarnett said:
Spending time in the redeveloping inner communities is another interesting comparison. Each lawn and house has such a high degree of variability from a combo of factors, redevelopment of older parcels with mature vegetation only being one of them. More noticeable is the completely random level of interest people have in their lawns and gardens which have deviated greatly over time as the community ages and each property has had many owners since.

Here's a few highlights I recall from the past summer wandering around and some specific:
  • 1950s bungalows with only grass and no shrubs
  • 1950s bungalows with rocks instead of grass
  • 1950s bungalows with about 2 feet extra of top soil and decades of meticulous gardening
  • Recent infills with incredibly manicured lawns and gardens
  • Recent infills with plastic grass and no trees
Example 1 - someone who loves gardening, hates lawns and has been giving 100% effort for decades:
View attachment 458834

Example 2 - someone who never thought about gardening or lawns in decades directly across the street from #1:
View attachment 458839

Example 3 - Someone who hates gardening and lawns and has 1000x the wealth as the rest of us. Glad this guy is saving on the maintenance costs with the plastic lawn, that should help with the $50,000 / month mortgage payments :)
View attachment 458835

Example 3 is the funniest to me - I'll never understand the extremely wealthy's choices. There's a middle ground between cheap zero maintenance plastic and being a passionate DIY gardener. Especially if the goal is to show-off your wealth a bit. Just hire someone to take care of it for you.
Click to expand...
The bear statue says it all
 
DougB said:
Is the soil really worse on the east side? Most of that land was formerly under cultivation. Soil conditions on the west side of the city tend to be rocky. The west side has the advantage of slightly higher precipitation and more hills to provide shelter from the chinooks.
Click to expand...
Yes and no. No, in that it’s mostly the same soil, but yes for the reasons you mention in that the less flat area and more precip has kept the soil from eroding at the same rate over the past several thousand years.
At least this is the way my high school geography teacher had explained it.
How much of a difference there is over all in the soil I don’t know.
I believe part of it is from the soil and precipitation, but its also is related to the economic standing of the quadrants.

One of the interesting things from the article is the comments made by one of the Northeast counsellors that the city isn’t being fair when giving out the trees. While it’s true, the north east could use more trees than the other quadrants. My cousin who works for the city told me that that not all of the 500 trees for the NE have been taken, whereas the 500 trees for the northwest were spoken for immediately, way back when word first came out about the program.
 
Lame, I did the module immediately at noon, went through the module as fast as possible (~25 minutes) to learn nearly nothing, and the form wouldn't load and now it says registration closed.Too bad there wasn't a better way to handle the volume of demand
 
Three mature trees being chopped.

A90FBAC6-938A-43A8-9091-483BA4D576E7.jpeg
 
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