Community Corner
Consultants: Decatur Tree Population Higher Than We Expected
They are conducting a tree canopy inventory.
Good news, tree lovers of Decatur.
Two consultants performing a tree canopy inventory say the city has more trees than they expected, according to the latest newsletter from the Georgia Urban Forestry Council.
Connie Head and Gretchen Musser said they expected to count about 3,200 trees in the city limits that were 2 inches DBH -- trunk diameter at breast height, 4.5 feet above the ground. But, the newsletter says,
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When data collection was completed in downtown and the NW quadrant, it became clear that there were many more city trees than the 3,200 originally estimated. With only 40 percent of the area completed, we had inventoried nearly 60 percent of the budgeted number of trees!
While this abundance of trees is a very good thing, we had to discuss with city staff options for how to complete the inventory since the total budget was for 3,200 trees maximum.
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What we decided was to focus on street trees only, and save the inventory of trees in parks and around public facilities for a later phase, and save the inventory of vacant planting sites for a later phase also.
The city definitely wanted to cover the entire geographic area, so we also decided to increase the minimum DBH to 12 inches, instead of 2, and that we would not inventory any small maturing, ornamental trees which are so numerous along the streets.
They said the largest tree inventoried is a 49-inch DBH water oak located on West Ponce de Leon Avenue.
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