Trees are at the heart of green infrastructure, providing valuable human and environmental benefits. They produce cooling shade that lessens the impact of urban heat islands. They also filter pollution, help manage stormwater and create healing environments that have been shown to improve health and wellbeing. Planting the right trees and protecting our existing tree canopy contributes to a better tomorrow!

Listen to 3 expert speakers from BC to Oregon!

In late September, symposium registrants will receive three pre-recorded lectures and an electronic form on which they can submit questions in advance of the panel discussion. They can join the live moderated panel discussion scheduled for Saturday, Oct 12th, from 10:00 am to 11:30 am.

In addition to the above symposium lectures, registrants will also receive a bonus recording of sold-out, popular ‘Dendro Futura’, an in-person NHS lecture presented by Henrik Sjöman, co-author of The Essential Tree Selection Guide, at the Center for Urban Horticulture in March 2024. (Details below.)

Recordings will be available for 4 weeks.

Lecture Descriptions:

Urban Trees: The New Reality with Douglas Justice

Climate change and a greater understanding of ecology and the importance of biodiversity—its effects on plant health, personal health and societal well-being—are all driving forces in the makeup of tomorrow’s urban forest. Are we ready?

Cultivating Cultivars: The How and Why of New Tree Development with Nancy Buley

The journey to develop, select, trial, and introduce new and improved tree cultivars is complex and may take 15 to 30 years or longer. A changing climate adds urgency to the search for tough, resilient, adaptable long-lived trees that will thrive in the Pacific Northwest. Understanding the timeline, processes, and the reasons behind cultivar development will help gardeners and tree advocates choose, plant, and nurture the best trees for future landscapes.

After a quick overview of the tree production timeline, Nancy Buley will describe the collaborative efforts of plant breeders, growers, urban foresters, arboreta, and academia to develop new trees. Using examples of several trees developed by J. Frank Schmidt & Son Co. that perform particularly well in the Pacific Northwest, she will share how new trees make their way into public landscapes and private gardens.

Awakening Your Inner Rewilder with Ethan Bryson

We are all a part of Nature. By looking back at what was and is already around us, we can find ways to live in better balance with the natural world. We will discuss the importance of bringing back wilderness and ways to activate our inner child by digging, planting, and playing in the natural spaces we can all help to create.

Speaker Bios:

Douglas Justice is an Associate Director at UBC Botanical Garden and Nitobe Memorial Garden in Vancouver. He also teaches in the UBC School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture, and in the Botanical Garden’s Horticulture Training Program. A Vancouver native, Douglas trained in nursery production prior to earning degrees in horticulture and botany. Throughout his working life, Douglas has been involved with horticultural groups and professional plant societies, including as chair of the Great Plant Picks tree committee. He co-authored The Jade Garden: New and Notable Plants from Asia with colleagues at UBC Botanical Garden, wrote a Field Guide to Ornamental Cherries in Vancouver with volunteers from the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival, and recently co-authored the book, The Lives of Leaves with the English dendrologist, Dan Crowley. Douglas wrote the text for the mobile app Vancouver Trees, and is now working to complete a treatise on the woody garden flora of Vancouver.

Nancy Buley is Director of Communications for J. Frank Schmidt& Son Co., wholesale tree growers of Boring, Oregon, where she has been “talking trees” for 30 years. A former newspaper reporter, she earned a bachelor’s degree in Technical Journalism and Horticulture from Oregon State University.  A Lifetime Honorary member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Nancy has earned national recognition for her tree advocacy and stewardship efforts including over a decade of service on the board of directors of Friends of Trees. Nancy lives and gardens on a couple of acres in Boring, where in her spare time she helps her son tend an eclectic assortment of trees at their boutique nursery, Treephoria.

Ethan Bryson is the founder of Natural Urban Forests, an afforestation company focused on addressing the urgent need to restore native forest ecosystems. Based in Seattle, Washington NUF creates forests utilizing the Miyawaki method of forest planting with heightened attention to transforming life in the soil. This innovative method enables forests to grow 10x faster at 30x the density of standard afforestation methods. “We work to honor and involve local indigenous communities in the planting and ongoing care of these forests. When possible we begin each planting with a blessing to reset the land, and nurture the plants, animals, and people.”

Bonus Lecture – Description and Speaker Bio:

Trees are among our best allies in the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss. Although we often think of them in forests, most of our interactions with trees take place in urban environments and in private gardens, where they provide us with shade, heat control, flood avoidance, noise and pollution reduction, beauty, and much more. However, to maintain and increase those manifold benefits we urgently need to rethink tree selection for our parks and gardens to include those species and provenances most suitable for the environmental conditions and stresses posed by a rapidly changing and unpredictable climate, spreading pests, and emerging plant diseases. To create resilience to present and future challenges, where the exact consequences of future scenarios cannot be predicted in advance, a commonly proposed solution is to cultivate a large diversity of trees, i.e., increase tree diversity at many taxonomic levels. Achieving an increased diversity of trees to improve the resilience for future conditions is likely to involve greater use of non-traditional species and unique genetic types of trees. In this presentation, an insight into a unique research profile is presented with focus on how to find and evaluate the trees of tomorrow, based on travels all over the world.

Henrik Sjöman is Scientific Curator at Gothenburg Botanical Garden, a Senior Researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and an Honorary Research Associate at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He specializes in how trees deliver ecosystem services in urban landscapes and the practical applications of this in terms of diversifying the urban treescape. Henrik communicates his research through numerous publications and by lecturing to urban planners, landscape architects, garden designers and tree nurseries throughout the world.

Above Images Courtesy www.sugiproject.com

This event is generously sponsored by Bartlett Tree Experts