THE SIMPLE ACT OF PLANTING A TREE
A Citizen Forester's Guide to Healing Your Neighborhood, Your City, and Your
World
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time
is now.
ANONYMOUS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
The Urban Forest Possible
CHAPTER 2
Whenever Two or More Are Gathered: Organizing Your Community
CHAPTER 3
Getting It Together: Planning and Funding Your Project
CHAPTER 4
The Creation Unveiled: Producing Your Event
CHAPTER 5
Taking It to the Streets: The Million Tree Story
CHAPTER 6
Do the Right Thing: Planting Your Tree
CHAPTER 7
It's Not Easy Being Green: Caring for Urban Trees
Legal stuff
TREEPEOPLE
With
ANDY AND KATIE LIPKIS
Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.
Los Angeles
This book is dedicated to Citizen Foresters everywhere. May we reforest the earth!
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lipkis, Andy.
The simple act of planting a tree: a Citizen Forester's guide to healing
your neighborhood, your city, and your world / TreePeople with Andy and Katie
Lipkis. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-87477-602-3 (paper): $12.95
1. Tree planting—Citizen participation. 2. Urban forestry—Citizen
participation. 3. Trees, Care of—Citizen participation. 4. Trees in
cities. I. Lipkis, Katie. II. TreePeople (Firm) III. Title. SB436.L56 1990
90-11133 635.9'77'091732-dc20 CIP
Copyright 1990 by TreePeople with Andy and Katie Lipkis
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing by the publisher. Requests for such permissions should be addressed to:
Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.
5858 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 200
Los Angeles, CA 90036
First Edition
Design: Deborah Daly, Daly Design
Editor: Nicky Leach
Production Editor: Paul Murphy
Zones indicated beneath tree drawings throughout the book refer to map on page 176.
The service mark TreePeople is registered and protected under California and federal laws, and the term Citizen Forester is proprietary to TreePeople.
Back cover photo by Carl Studna. Other photographs by David Bohrer, Jon Earl, Bruce Flint, Cathryn Berger Kaye, Jerold Kress, Andy Lipkis, Katie Lipkis, George Ollen, Jeff Share, and Ben Swets. Drawings on pages 44, 133, 135, 136, 137, 144, 148, 149, 157, and 158 are by Mark Beall. Cartoon on page 115 is reprinted with permission of Richard Wallmeyer, Wallmeyer Cartoons, Press-Telegram, copyright 1984. Captioned drawings of trees are by Anne Spaulding. Charts on pages 34 and 56, photos on pages 167 and 172, and drawings on pages 54 and 55 are reprinted from A Planter's Guide to the Urban Forest with permission from Fern Tiger and Associates, copyright 1983. Chart on page 16 is reprinted with permission of Jeremy Rifkin. Photograph and article "Andy vs. the Bureaucratic Deadwood" on page 40 are courtesy of the Los Angeles Times, April 23, 1973.
Manufactured on recycled paper in the United States of America.
The People of TreePeople
Acknowledgments
This book is the product of four years of Citizen Forester Trainings held at the TreePeople headquarters in Los Angeles. Heartfelt thanks to every graduate of the training for they are the real authors of the work. Many people's energy has gone-knowingly or unknowingly-into creating this book, including Fred Anderson, Mark Beall, Caryn Diamond Bosson, Jon Earl, Jeri Eckhart, Katherine Gould-Martin, Mary Greenstein, Teri Hannigan, Margaret Pott Hartwell, Scott Hayman, Alex Pancheco, Phil Porush, Ellie Rosenthal, Murray Rosenthal; Rick Ryan, Walter Teller, Joseph Turner, Lorna Weinheimer, and David Winkelman. Thanks also to TreePeople's former, current, and future staff, board of directors, volunteers, and members, and countless others who have become so much a part of the fabric of TreePeople that there is no separation.
Thanks to Cor Trowbridge who almost lost her mind deciding what was technically correct for inclusion in Chapters 6 and 7, and to those urban-tree experts who guided her, including Alden Kelley, Phil Barker, Richard Harris, Clyde Hunt, Gary Moll, Paul Rogers, Rowan Rowntree, and Bob Skiera.
We extend our gratitude to California ReLeaf, the American Forestry Association's Global ReLeaf campaign, and a handful of imaginative urban foresters for feeding the roots, embracing the work, and holding the vision, and to Jeremy Tarcher, whose personal commitment to the empowerment of individuals made the publication of this book possible in an indecently short period of time.
To those who suffered while we wrote—parents, friends, staff, and Phoebe Lipkis—we ask your forgiveness. Yes, Phoebe, the book is now done.
Our congratulations to the dynamic Deborah Daly of Daly Design for a stupendous-looking book, and to Tarcher staff, including Robert Welsch, Daniel Malvin, Karen Kallis, and Paul Murphy, for patience and persistence.
The following deserve special mention as it is their financial support that has fed the development of TreePeople's Citizen Forester Training:
The McKesson Foundation
The men and women of McDonnell Douglas–West
The Laird Norton Foundation
Copyright 1990 by TreePeople with Andy and Katie Lipkis
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing by the publisher.