Why You Need a 50-Year Management Plan for Your Trees

Trees are more than just an element of the landscape; they are assets. Because well-maintained trees increase the value and desirability of the properties where they grow, it is in the best interest of the property owner, manager, or board to proactively manage trees and include them in the long term strategic plan for the property. In doing so, there is more to consider than simply what we call arboriculture, or the regular trimming and maintenance of the trees themselves. In order to truly protect our property’s assets we must cultivate a sustainable forest by proactively maintaining species and age diversity within the population. Historic picture of American Elms dying of Dutch Elm Disease at the University of VermontLet’s take species diversity first. Beginning in the 1940’s, Dutch elm disease swept across North America and by 1989 had destroyed 75% of the continent’s 77 million elm trees. The cost to particularly hard hit communities was astronomical. It’s clear from this example how one pest or disease can result in a catastrophic loss of a monoculture.Age diversity is a less common but no less important topic. Let’s imagine a new HOA community in which all the trees are between 4 and 7-years old. While it is preferable to plant trees of a variety of ages, it is less common because larger trees are more expensive both to buy and install. Over the next 20 to 30 years as the value of the trees increases, both in terms of the benefit they provide to homeowners and the dollars that have been invested in their care, we approach a point when maturity-related issues (overcrowding, hardscape damage, branch and tree failures) require that trees begin to be removed. The hidden risk for an urban forest in which large numbers of trees are the same age is that they may start to experience age-related complications at the same time. No one wants to remove and replace all the trees on their property in the same 3-year span; an urban clear cut is expensive and aesthetically undesirable and leaves the community with fewer, or at least much younger, trees. Large, mature trees line a street Young, newly-established street treesWith these factors in mind, part of any community’s long term strategic planning should include a comprehensive plan to cultivate and maintain a species and age diverse forest. Such a plan would of necessity include an arboricultural component that ensures the regular maintenance of the trees themselves. But it would also codify the community’s plan for removing and replacing trees that reach the end of their safe usable service life so that the tree population continues to deliver benefits to the homeowners, without periodic huge spikes in cost, for decades to come.