Tree of the Week: High Tension!

By: Mark Halpin Forestry Manager Some trees are begging to be climbed, and some are begging to be walked up… Anyone who has been to the Tower Grove Music Stand, […]

The Woody Monster of Cattail Canyon

By: Mark Halpin, Forestry Manager Mark Twain said the coyote is “a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton” and I would have agreed before seeing the fine furry inhabitants of […]

Silver Maple vs. Sidewalk

Tree of the Week: Silver Maple vs. Sidewalk By: Mark Halpin, Forestry Manager Just outside of Forest ReLeaf’s Juniata office stands a silver maple (Acer saccharinum). Not the most desirable […]

Tree of the Week: Sabamiki Catalpa

By: Mark Halpin, Forestry Manager There’s nothing interesting about perfection. Artists and artisans have understood this for a long time – the intricate weaving traditions of the Persians, the Navajo, […]

Exclude Included Bark

By: Mark Halpin, Forestry Manager The very words send shivers down the spine of urban foresters everywhere. Four dread syllables, sounding the gunshot-crack of catastrophic tree failure. A two-word lightning […]

Tree of the Week: Lightening Strikes!

By: Mark Halpin, Forestry Manager Trees, so often being the high points in landscapes, naturally attract a fair number of lightning strikes. The resulting damage is wildly unpredictable; trees can […]

Tree of the Week: Osage orange

By: Mark Halpin, Forestry Manager Osage orange, Maclura pomifera, is a tree possessed of many strange qualities. The standout is its fruit, those softball-sized “oranges”, “hedge apples” or “monkey brains” […]

Tree of the Week: White Mulberry

By Mark Halpin, Forestry Manager White mulberry, Morus alba, has previously been featured in Tree of the Week. I didn’t have a lot of good things to say about it. […]

Tree of the Week: Central Fields Sycamore

By: Mark Halpin, Forestry Manager This American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), located just off of Central Fields in Forest Park, has been one of my favorite trees since I first came […]

Tree of the Week Turns Over a New Leaf

The problem with doing Tree of the Week is that eventually, you’re going to run out of trees. Not trees in general – there are thousands of species worldwide –  […]