James Urban “Up By Roots”

Lærerbogen om den gode bytræsplantning.

Up by Roots presents an approach to creating healthy soils and trees in the built environment. The book was published by the ISA in 2008.

Up by Roots will help improve the quality of trees in your city. It is intended to guide the design professional, the citizen activist, the politician who must vote for tree funding, and the developer who wants trees that will increase property value.

The first chapter of the book summarizes the problems and solutions of planting trees in urban areas and is intended to guide policy decisions. The remainder of the book is a technical manual to assist in the day-to-day, tree-by-tree work of building the urban forest. Part 1 looks at the basic science of soil and trees as well as introduces the tools needed to analyze soil conditions.

Part 2 presents the skills needed in the design and construction process. The needs of the shrubs, lawns, and groundcovers in urban soils are not addressed, and the book will not delve deeply into the special issues of preserving large trees during construction. However, the principles of tree biology and soils are the same for almost all plants in proposed and existing situations.

Writer
James Urban, FASLA specializes in the design of trees and soils in urban spaces. He has written and lectured extensively on the subject of urban tree planting and has been responsible for the introduction of many innovations including most of the current standards relating to urban tree plantings. He was instrumental in the development of structural cells and structural planting soils for use under sidewalk pavements, micro root paths, and macro soil trench techniques. James Urban is credited with helping to re-awaken the profession of landscape architecture to the skills required to successfully plant trees in difficult urban soils. In 2007 he was awarded the Medal of Excellence by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) for his work with urban trees and soils.

He is the author of “Up by Roots: Healthy Soils and Trees in the Built Environment” published by the International Society of Arboriculture. This book is the ASLA award winner in Communication in 2009.