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DougB said:
The City traditionally does a horrible job of planting and maintaining trees:
-planting them too late in the year (I know some people claim you can plant in the fall, but I always had far more success with planting in April and May)
-planting in locations where they are unlikely to survice (ex. west facing slopes, small vaults for street trees, too close to roads). The vaults that work for street trees in other cities don't work in Calgary. Planting too close to pavement or concrete also seems to decrease survivability in Calgary
-not providing wide enough boulevards and medians. Again, trees need more space to root in a dry climate with high temperature variability like Calgary
-not watering often enough for about the first 5 years
-siting too many in locations where they are likely to be hit my cars in the winter

The BP Birth Place forest program in the early 2000's seemed to do a great job of planting and maintaining trees - possibly something to emmulate.

Calgary trees already face many challeges and now the increased use of road salt in recent years seems to be taking its toll.

Before I left Calgary, my house backed directly onto Fish Creek Park. I had 9 trees on the lot plus probably 100+ bushes and junipers. It was high maintenance but looked great. The owner after me took great care of the yard, but the subsequent owner unfortunately removed most of the landscaping so the yard is little more than dead grass now :( I question why someone uniterested in enjoying a yard would purchase a home like that.
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It always amazes me how bad the city manages its tree program. One of the worst spots to plant is where the surrounds mowers compact the soil and yet that's their prime planting spots
 
Not a tree expert, but a tree fan. Calgary has a lot of factors that really don't help out the nice, big, leafy trees from developing and surviving. Maintenance and effort is certainly part of it. We like trees but don't want to pay for them with better maintenance plans it seems. Other cities we look to for examples and comparison have nowhere near the natural struggles as Calgary does to grow anything, let alone big leafy canopy trees.

It's my understanding that naturally Calgary would have very few big trees outside the valleys and a few popular stands. So we are fighting an uphill battle from the start. My thought - correct me if this is not a valid way to think about it - is we can have trees because we can compensate from the natural conditions by paving over and having lots of impermeable surfaces in a city so the rainfall that does occur can be concentrated to the remaining areas.

Another major factor in addition to general dryness is a highly seasonal / episodic rainfall. Some years it's thunderstorms every day with punishing hail, other years it's a drought and only a handful of rain events. That's got to be hard on most trees both from the lack of water plus every 10 years they risk losing 10 years of growth from a big hail/snow event.

We must have close to the most freeze-thaw cycles of anywhere in the world. I don't know if this impacts trees themselves, but plays havoc for the drainage and water management pieces that makes trees possible.

Finally, this city is big and sits right at the junction of a bunch of growing zones - I bet trees are way easier in one area over another. Doesn't Spy Hill in the northwest get like 2x the precipitation of the SE? The NE doesn't have a ton of trees but is also the most prairie biome we have so that's probably a factor as it's just a bit harder given their storm paths and rainfall levels. The centre and centre west is very parkland/river valley, while the northwest and west are higher altitude - all that has to be a material factor in relative easiness of tree canopies, no?
 
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Trees are definitely a struggle to grow here due to the unique climate. When my mother was a growing up in Calgary there were very few trees anywhere in the city, even in established parts. It was commonly believed that trees didn't grow here, so most people never bothered to plant them. A few factors have changed things up of course. We have a slight heat island effect in inner parts of the city, and also development breaking up the prairie wind somewhat. Funneling of water due to development as @CBBarnett pointed out. Also people simply watering and looking after their trees until they mature. All of those things cause change, just looking at Nose hill you can see there are more trees than there were 60 years ago, and not from planting or watering, just the changing environment.

Trees will always be a struggle, but I'm happy if the city can put them into areas where people will use them. Parks obviously, and around pathways and bike trails. I'd like to see the city plant a few small groves along the Nose Creek pathway.
 
I'd be surprised if impermeable surfaces funneling water has a positive impact on tree growth as most of that water would rapidly discharge into drainage systems as opposed to soaking into the ground.

Vegetation taking over Nose Hill and the eastern section of Fish Creek Park is very noticeable over the past 20 years.

The Nose Creek pathway has several groves of planted trees: ex. Bottomlands Park to the north of Telus Spark, the M&H memorial grove between 8th and 16th
 
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The amount of wind might be the biggest factor in the ability for Calgary's natural geography to support trees. There is actually a noticeable increase in what we can grow over the last couple of decades with a shift in growing zones and a general increase in precipitation. It's worth experimenting with different plants and trees if you are a bit of a green thumb.
 
Surrealplaces said:
Trees are definitely a struggle to grow here due to the unique climate. When my mother was a growing up in Calgary there were very few trees anywhere in the city, even in established parts. It was commonly believed that trees didn't grow here, so most people never bothered to plant them. A few factors have changed things up of course. We have a slight heat island effect in inner parts of the city, and also development breaking up the prairie wind somewhat. Funneling of water due to development as @CBBarnett pointed out. Also people simply watering and looking after their trees until they mature. All of those things cause change, just looking at Nose hill you can see there are more trees than there were 60 years ago, and not from planting or watering, just the changing environment.

Trees will always be a struggle, but I'm happy if the city can put them into areas where people will use them. Parks obviously, and around pathways and bike trails. I'd like to see the city plant a few small groves along the Nose Creek pathway.
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The tree planting done by some funeral home along Nose creek pathway as memorials in one of the open fields looks quite terrible. Zero planning and no manicuring or care from what I can tell. I agree we need trees along that system though.
 
Sambo said:
The tree planting done by some funeral home along Nose creek pathway as memorials in one of the open fields looks quite terrible. Zero planning and no manicuring or care from what I can tell. I agree we need trees along that system though.
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agree! I’d rather have my ashes scattered in the median of Deerfoot than have my estate pay for a sad sack tree in that plantation.
 
The topic of Vancouver's trees came up in another thread. I was just playing around with the time function on Google Street view and was blown away by how quickly trees grow in that city:

Main St @ 33 Ave in 2009, spindly, newly planted trees:
vancouver_trees1.jpg


Main St @ 33 Ave just ten years later (2019), epic tree-lined street
vancouver_trees2.jpg



By point of comparison, here's Patterson Blvd in Calgary in the same time period.

2009 (spindly, newly planted trees):
calgary_trees1.jpg


2019 (spindly 10+ year old trees):
calgary_trees2.jpg
 
Found this helpful site that does the comparison work for you http://www.vancouver.climatemps.com/vs/calgary.php


1621356433331.png


Vancouver gets 76.9 cm(!) more rain, plus longer growing seasons. Rainforest climates are great for growing things.

Give a bit more detail, I thought these charts were cool from here https://calgary.weatherstats.ca/charts/precipitation-monthly.html
Vancouver
1621356970512.png

Calgary
1621357008446.png



Not only are we dry, we also have a not-insignificant percentage of our precipitation actually harmful to trees overall (% hail). So unless we engineer our way out of it with thoughtful water management and top-tier tree growth strategies/designs it'll be an uphill battle in our inhospitable wasteland.

On the plus side mold or shower towels that stay wet between two showers aren't much of a concept here so we have that.
 
I say they should stop mowing the grass along Stoney, Deerfoot, and the major roads (continue all the residential mowing, and smaller roads). It looks better as tall green grass in those massive interchanges rather than cutting it short and then have it dry up and turn yellow in July. Put the money towards better tree care.
 
The Familia said:
I say they should stop mowing the grass along Stoney, Deerfoot, and the major roads (continue all the residential mowing, and smaller roads). It looks better as tall green grass in those massive interchanges rather than cutting it short and then have it dry up and turn yellow in July. Put the money towards better tree care.
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What we need is more of this:
www.calgary.ca

Roadside Naturalization Pilot Project in Ward 10

www.calgary.ca www.calgary.ca

The article quotes a cost of $1.5 MM to maintain turf grass throughout the city medians that adds no value IMO. I really hope this pilot bears fruit and acts as a catalyst to moving away from our obsession with green turf grass
 
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