Up By Roots

by James Urban

A manual for landscape architects, architects, urban foresters, and planners who are designing, specifying, installing and managing trees in the built environment.

479 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Miguel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential read for anyone whose work intersects with the growth of trees in urban environments. Very practical, filled with useful diagrams and specific information, yet also easy to read and digest. However, Urban misses some of the value of native trees (their specific relationships with local fauna and flora) and shares the misguided perspective that urban environments constitute new ecologies where historically native plants can no longer be seen as native to the cities that displaced their habitat (in my mind, an excuse to separate ourselves from the moral imperative to repair extremely degraded ecologies in urban environments). It is also a very general text, so must be supplemented with local knowledge, especially in drylands without sufficient rainfall to grow trees without irrigation.

[Parks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Largely the book is for designer methodology, recommendations, do's and do nots. Besides that, provides great information on brief soil and tree science; covering mitigation, identification and options.

Would recommend to those digging deep on learning about compaction mitigation and girdling roots.