News Release

Urban forestry highlighted at San Francisco Flower and Garden Show

Peer-Reviewed Publication

USDA Forest Service - Pacific Southwest Research Station

SAN FRANCISCO—Urban forestry experts with the U.S. Forest Service, Cal Fire, U.C. cooperative extension service and citizens’ groups will be leading seminars and staffing exhibits at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show to discuss the importance of urban forestry in the Bay area.

The show will be held March 12-16 at the Cow Palace, and is expected to bring 40,000 to 50,000 people to the state’s largest flower and garden exhibition.

This year’s show features 22 display gardens and 250 exhibits spread across four acres. Urban forestry exhibits will include a 1,000-square-foot demonstration garden and information booth, staffed by California Urban Forests Council, Mandeville Garden Company and Forest Service representatives.

Scientists with the Forest Service’s Center for Urban Forest Research will be available to discuss findings presented earlier this year in the “San Francisco Bay Area State of the Urban Forest Final Report.” The report can be found at the Center for Urban Forest Research website at: http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/programs/cufr/.

The report describes how scientists compared satellite imagery from 1984, 1995 and 2002 to examine land use in the Bay area, where a 10 percent increase in canopy cover has not kept pace with a 17 percent increase in impervious surfaces. Other findings showed urban forestry benefits to the region annually exceed $5 billion and that a 3 percent increase in the urban canopy structure could increase that by $475 million a year.

The research focused on tracking changes to the area’s canopy cover and impervious surfaces, quantifying urban forest values, and estimating future benefits from urban forest expansion.

“The challenge ahead is to integrate the green infrastructure with the grey infrastructure,” said Dr. Greg McPherson, a scientist at the Center for Urban Forest Research and one of the study’s authors. Urban forestry experts attending the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show will also lead two seminars at the event.

Janice Alexander, sudden oak death outreach coordinator for the U.C. cooperative extension service, and Michael Bohne, California forest health monitoring coordinator for the Forest Service, will explain how gardeners can prevent plant diseases from spreading.

Tom Womick, an educator and entertainer for the National Tree Trust, will give an hour-long presentation called “Trail of Trees” that teaches people of all ages about the importance of urban trees.

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