Online tool promotes tree success
A new website has been developed to help landscape professionals, municipalities and those planting trees in urban and suburban areas to properly select the right tree and adequately remediate the soil based on current site conditions in order to minimize tree mortality.
The website is the result of Greening the Canadian Landscape, a research project led by Vineland Research and Innovation Centre (VRIO) in Vineland, Ont.
The Tree Species Selector located at GreeningCanadianLandscape.ca, allows users to choose from a variety of planting sites and then select specific criteria such as tree size, hardiness zone, shade tolerance and drainage conditions. A broad tree species database is then filtered to list only the species best suited for each situation.
The filtered results also include a detailed fact sheet on each recommended species that includes photos, notes on specific insects and diseases, management notes, and a full list of cultivars.
Tree selections are currently suited to eastern Canada, with Ontario-specific pest and disease notes, but efforts are under way to customize the website for central Canada with Alberta-specific pest and disease notes. Currently, trees hardy as far north as USDA zone two and as far south as zone six have been included.
Another feature of the website, the Soil Remediation Calculator, provides information on the importance of soil testing and allows users to enter data from a soil test that has already been obtained. The calculator will then make recommendations on any necessary soil remediation and provide a list of tree species best suited for the soil. Links to soil testing labs and a video on various soil remediation techniques are also included.
The Greening the Canadian Landscape research program was supported by the Canadian Ornamental Horticulture Alliance (COHA) research and innovation cluster and is funded in part through the AgriInnovation Program under Growing Forward 2 (GF2). GF2 is a federal-provincial-territorial initiative.