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Don't let alien invaders take over Bay's landscape
Native plants help to save time, money, Chesapeake watershed
Urban tree canopy effort branching out across watershed
Trees make good neighbors for many reasons. They absorb stormwater, reduce erosion and filter pollutants that might otherwise reach local rivers and the Chesapeake Bay. Trees also lessen energy costs for buildings and fight global warming through their ability to store and absorb carbon.
But advertising the benefits of trees is not enough to encourage most private land owners to open their wallets and pick up a shovel.
It also takes some good advice and a robust choice of trees at their local nurseries. A coupon doesn’t hurt, either.
Baltimore County officials combined all four in their Growing Home Campaign and were thrilled by the results. Growing Home debuted for three months last spring and has returned for a longer run in 2007.
Growing Home aims to replenish the county’s tree canopy by encouraging homeowners to plant a combined total of 10,000 trees over the next few years. Experts recommend that tree canopy should cover 25–40 percent of an urban area. But the heavily developed portion of Baltimore County has tree canopy coverage of less than 20 percent.
The Growing Home campaign features a $10 coupon, nested in an educational brochure or campaign web site, which can be used toward the purchase of a tree at participating nurseries. There is no limit on the number of trees a homeowner can purchase, but there must be one coupon used for each tree purchased.
“It was a two-part effort, both for public education and to get more trees into the ground,” said Don Outen, of the county’s Department of Environmental Protection and Resource Management. “The results were tremendous.”
The campaign coupon includes a space where customers provide information about the type of tree they purchased and where the tree will be planted. The nurseries return the coupons to the county, where Outen and program coordinator Diana Cohen analyze the results.
Approximately 1,600 trees were purchased using the coupon during the three-month campaign in 2006.
“For such a short period of time, we had a really big response,” said Outen. “We couldn’t keep the printed coupons in stock. The web site brochure and coupon was downloaded 5,500 times. In April, it was the second most downloaded document on the entire Baltimore County website.”
Customers selected a mixture of shade, ornamental and evergreen trees, and planted most of them in the more urban parts of the county. They also spent more than expected.
“The original idea was for $25 trees, which we set as the minimum purchase price,” Outen said. “At $25, a $10 discount is pretty good. But some people paid $200 and more. They were buying up to get better stock.”
The average purchase price was $55 for a tree roughly 6 feet tall. These trees are more likely to get planted and survive, as compared with seedling trees—and they produce a larger canopy more quickly.
Cohen said that many people are interested in trees but lack confidence in selecting and planting them. They need the nudge that Growing Home provides.
“For some people, the cash was an enticing incentive, but by and large people wanted the education,” Cohen said. “Homeowners told us that they didn’t know what kind of tree to ask for at the nursery or they weren’t sure where or how to plant their tree properly when they got home.”
County officials see Growing Home as an excellent investment. For stormwater management, especially in areas of the county that are already developed, adding trees can be a cost-effective way to mitigate stormwater. Planting trees is far less expensive than engineering the landscape with pipes, drainage basins and other methods to control runoff.
The first season of Growing Home also brought a notable amount of private money to bear on a very public problem. Citizens who used the coupons spent approximately $72,000 on trees. If one includes the labor to plant the tree, valued at $20 per tree, the total value of citizen contributions reaches $104,000. The county and its retail partners invested approximately $16,000 to cover the $10 per coupon discount, bring the estimated total impact to $120,000.
Cohen hopes that a close partnership with retailers will also reap rewards over the coming years. The program revealed that many retailers are carrying fewer trees, with less variety in type and size, especially for native species.
“We found that a lot of nurseries had stopped carrying many trees,” Cohen said. “They’d keep some balled and burlapped trees on hand, because they could use them on a job site if they didn’t sell. But they weren’t stocking containerized trees—the ones that homeowners can pick up and handle and plant themselves.”
Cohen hopes to change this by direct outreach to retailers, who saw how much consumer interest was generated in 2006. One retail manager even invited Cohen to speak to suppliers.
“Because of the way that Diana has engaged them, they are getting the message that trees are back,” Outen said. “We are really seeing signs of interest. That’s good, because we’ll never make our goal for increasing the urban tree canopy unless the trees are out there for citizens to buy.”
The Maryland Nursery and Landscape Association supports the Growing Home Campaign, as do the Chesapeake Bay Program, USDA Forest Service, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation, and the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company.
This year’s campaign opened in March and will extend through December, when Cohen will use the coupon to suggest the stocking and buying of live Christmas trees. The coupons will again be available online and through libraries, the county recycling newsletter, senior centers, parks and some real estate agents and faith-based groups. The Baltimore Gas and Electric Company will also distribute the coupon to thousands of its customers in an annual mailing.
As the numbers grow, the county plans to feed the coupon data into a GIS system and pair it with the findings of two upcoming studies that will detail the county’s existing tree canopy, including location, species and mortality rate. In addition, the studies will provide measurements for the value that trees have in the urban environment in relation to stormwater management, energy savings and carbon sequestration. The combined results will help tailor promotions to areas that are most in need of tree canopy.
To learn more or to download the Growing Home coupon, visit www.baltimorecountymd.gov/go/trees.
