Symposium: “Where the Roots Hit the Curb”

Posted by on October 8, 2004

Please join us for “Where the Roots Hit the Curb”, a symposium exploring solutions to the conflicts between city street trees and hardscape elements such as sidewalks, curbs and gutters. The event will take place Friday, November 5 from 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM at the Franklin Institute Science Museum, 20th and Parkway, in center city Philadelphia, PA.

James Urban, FASLA, noted landscape architect and urban tree advocate, will present the keynote address on making places for trees in cities. Larry Costello, UC-Davis, and Nina Bassuk of the Urban Horticulture Institute at Cornell University, will highlight their work and update us on techniques tried around the country. The all day conference will examine new and tested methods of reducing the conflict between trees and infrastructure, especially underground. Local practitioners will raise issues encountered in their tree planting work and share success stories highlighting a variety of techniques. Participants will be encouraged to raise questions and to share their own success stories from the field.

The conference will provide opportunities for demonstrations of newer planting techniques, and dialogue and questioning across the engineering, landscape architecture, real estate, and community development disciplines.

The planning committee and major sponsors are City Parks Association of Philadelphia, The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, The Pennsylania State University School of Forest Resources, Penn State Cooperative Extension, Morris Arboretum of University of Pennsylvania, and TreeVitalize.
Co-sponsors include Bartlett Tree Experts, Community Design Collaborative of AIA Philadelphia, Fairmount Park Commission, PA/DE Chapter of ASLA, PA/DE Chapter ISA, Philadelphia Department of Streets, Philadelphia Water Department, and the Philadelphia Parks Alliance.

For further information or a registration brochure, see
http://www.cityparkphila.org or email Mary Anne Hunter at mahunter@comcast.net.