Valuing trees

A fellow member of a native plant society mailing list estimated how much the trees on his campus in north Texas were worth. He decided about $10 million.

"Since it is very difficult to move a 40' Oak, especially a long distance, I simply figured $30K minimum for a specimen tree.... and I still feel this value is way low," he writes.

By root and twig

I see the funny term "urban forestry" and am tempted to imagine forests marching into the streets, crumbling asphalt and concrete, ripping parking lots out with their roots. The entwives return after the dust settles to create peaceful parks between the skyscrapers. Humans come out at noon and eat their lunches in these shady, fountainous picnic groves.

According to this study around San Antonio, "residential shade trees were shown to save each home an average of $76 a year" in air conditioning costs. It also gives much more impressively-scaled statistics, but this one is nice in its significance to Billy Bob's wallet.

Another fantasy I have is that the city planning people will be practical enough to start considering the vegetable world in their budgets before I'm dead.