City outlines urban forestry program
Although they are prohibited in Sandpoint’s rights of way, fruit trees are among the top sellers at All Seasons Garden & Floral, owner Nancy Hastings said. She and her crew are preparing for the spring planting season. (Photo by RALPH BARTHOLDT)
SANDPOINT — When it comes to trees, the city branches in two directions.
There are good trees and bad trees.
Good trees are approved by the city’s urban forestry committee and the bad trees, such as mountain ash, big leaf maples and most fruit trees, are prohibited in city rights-of-way.
As spring approaches and thumbs take on a tinge of green, Sandpoint residents who are feeling the urge to plant a tree in that bare spot where their lawn meets the street should be warned.
“Thou shalt not plant fruit trees,” Stephen Drinkard, the city’s urban forester, said.
Drinkard will give a presentation at noon today at the Sandpoint library to publicize the city’s urban forestry program.
Fruit trees, he said, are on a list of prohibited trees that includes almost a dozen varieties.
Drinkard had to make that clear recently to another city employee: His boss.
City Planner Jeremy Grimm had a pear tree that he hoped to plant near the street in front of his Sandpoint home.
The city’s resolution, however, prohibits fruit trees in the right of way.
“I presented his verbal application to the committee,” Drinkard said. “The committee said no.”
Fruit trees can leave a mess of fermented fruit, seeds and slippery skins on sidewalks and streets that must be cleaned. The city doesn’t have the time or staff to clean up what the trees leave behind.
Fruit trees, though, are a favorite among many residents like Grimm.
“They are some of our biggest sellers,” Nancy Hastings, owner of All Seasons Garden & Floral, said.
The Kootenai business is pulling its fruit trees out of cold storage and prepping bare-root trees for planting.
Poplars are also on the city’s bad-tree list.
“They are some of the most popular shade trees,” All Seasons employee Karen Hempstead said.
As part of its Community Forest Program, Sandpoint established guidelines in 2001 that addressed its inventory of trees.
It has 2,400 trees in rights of way and more than 1,000 in parks and public places.
“That is 3,400 public trees,” Drinkard said. “There are many thousands more in private yards.”
The prohibited trees are those that grow too large for overhanging power lines, their shallow roots may buckle sidewalks or destroy lawns, or their wood may be too soft and easily broken causing a hazard in windstorms or under snow loads.
The city’s forestry program has not just inventoried trees, but appraised trees in public rights of way.
A silver maple on 4th Avenue that is 38 inches in diameter at chest height is worth $47,500 according to the city. A 27-inch black walnut on Pine Street is a $21,000 tree.
People often fell trees on rights of way, he said. The practice can cost the illegal sawyer a lot of cash.
“You can’t replace a 27-inch London Plane with a 2-inch London Plane,” Drinkard said. “People understand money.”
The city’s list of approved trees is much longer than the list of prohibited trees.
When Jeanette Ward opted to have a few trees planted along the sidewalk of her newer Michigan Street home she joined a growing number of residents who know about Sandpoint’s urban forestry program.
“I just thought it was so awesome,” she said.
The city provided the trees and labor — at a cost of approximately $100 per tree — and Ward chose five trees to spruce up her view.
One of the varieties was a Chanticleer pear.
It’s not a fruit for all practical purposes.
“It sounds like a fruit tree, but it’s not,” Drinkard said.
It occasionally bears small marble-like berries, if it bears at all, he said.
In a few years when the trees grow, Ward said, “it will look really good. It will be beautiful.”