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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We'll close out the show today with our April check-in with trees. It's month five in our year-long project, once a month, to follow the life of a tree through the four seasons, looking at and learning about the trees around us and what they do for and to us, and what we do for and to them. New York City alone has millions of trees. We hope you picked out one to follow this year, maybe even tweeted a photo using the hashtag #BLTrees as we've been inviting you to do once a month.

I posted mine today of the beautiful Callery pear tree on the block on which I live in Manhattan, becoming an even more beautiful tree at this time of year with the leaves coming out, the flowers coming out. How about yours? Post your BL trees, hashtag #BLTrees, photos on Twitter.

Today we're going to talk about street trees specifically, like the one on my block. Those giant, sometimes, trees growing out of a tiny patch of earth in the sidewalk that give us some shade in the summer and have to deal with salt spreaders and trash and dogs all year round on the streets of New York or other cities in particular. We'll get to that. Plus which trees do best on the streets and how we can help keep the trees well-nourished and strong in an urban environment.

Back with us is our guide for this adventure through the year, urban ecologist Marielle Anzelone, founder of New York City Wildflower Week, who proposed this project and has offered her ongoing expertise in putting it together. Hi again, Marielle.

Marielle Anzelone: Hi, Brian. Good morning.

Brian Lehrer: Today she's joined by Jennifer Greenfeld, which seems like a good name for-- A New York City Parks Department assistant commissioner for forestry, horticulture, and natural resources. Commissioner, welcome to WNYC.

Jennifer Greenfeld: Thank you. Good morning, Brian, Marielle.

Brian Lehrer: Marielle, we've asked folks to pick a tree, one outside your window or in your backyard or on your block, or a tree that catches your attention as you make your way through your local park or anywhere in your neighborhood and get to know it. Remind us, then do what?

Marielle Anzelone: Then they should post it online and use the hashtag #BLTrees, and people in the community, namely me, but there are lots of others, weigh in. We've been sharing comments and cheering people on when we see flowers on their trees, which has started to happen over the past month. I've gotten a lot of people to go look at the tips of their trees with either a magnifying glass or a hand lens. I felt very proud of being able to help expand people's ideas that trees are alive and they're exciting and they us offer a lot and they're worth paying attention to.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, give us a call and say anything about your tree here in mid-April. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Jennifer Greenfeld, what kind of care do street trees need? Is it different from trees in other environments than the city?

Jennifer Greenfeld: I think yes and no. All trees basically need the same thing. They need light, air. They need a good space to grow underground. Any tree needs those things. It's just a lot more challenging on the street to get all those. There's a lot more competition with things in the air like buildings and streetlights and wires and things underground like utility pipes and bus stops and things like that. You just need to be aware of all the parts of the tree, both above ground and below ground, and think about how do you give it more space? How do you give it more air, light, and water?

Brian Lehrer: Right. There's light issues. There's pollution, as you mentioned, sometimes from vehicles, that can harm a tree. You've told us they need salt flushed out after the winter snow season, although there wasn't so much snow this winter. Tell us about the Steward program that the city runs. How to get involved and how to become a steward or even what they call a Super Steward of street trees.

Jennifer Greenfeld: Well, first of all, I'll say it takes nothing to take care of your tree. You don't need to do anything formal or get the Parks Department's permission to do really simple things like watering in the summer, pulling weeds, cultivating the soil to make sure there's a lot of space for growth underground. There are tips on how to do that online. You can go to the Street Tree Map and say, "I'm caring for this tree." Then we do offer support. We have online trainings and in-person trainings if you want to become a steward. That means you can just drop in on events to help take care of trees, or you can get a little bit more education at one of our trainings.

Then in return for committing to caring for your trees, you can get tools and access to resources. If you run your own programs we can sometimes bring out a truck full of mulch or Tree LC truck to support your program. There's lots of ways you can care for your trees.

Brian Lehrer: Paula in Manhattan wants to talk about a tree. You're on WNYC. Hi, Paula.

Paula: Oh, hi. Hello. I've talked to you a couple of times. Thank you. There was a tree on 92nd or 93rd Street for many, many years. Every year I went and looked at it, and then I came back from Upstate and it was gone, replaced by a new building. I always thought it was a cherry tree and it had thorns. I'd never, ever seen anything like it and I just wondered. I miss it.

Marielle Anzelone: That sounds like--

Brian Lehrer: Marielle, can you help identify that tree?

Jennifer Greenfeld: A hawthorn perhaps?

Marielle Anzelone: If it's something floriferous where you're noticing the flowers then it would be a hawthorn. Hawthorns are closely related to cherry trees, so the flowers look a little bit similar. Hawthorns have incredibly long-- there may be like three inches long thorns on them. Those are distinctive as well. They do get planted pretty frequently, I'd say. Right, Jennifer?

Jennifer Greenfeld: It's not super common for a street tree. It's really common in the parks, especially in some of our older landscapes. We don't plant trees with thorns on purpose. They can now make thornless varieties, so hopefully, the newer ones wouldn't have thorns.

Brian Lehrer: Lauren in Flatbush, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lauren.

Lauren: Hi. Thank you so much, Brian. It's funny that I'm calling on this. Love your show. Wanted to ask about pruning a street tree in front of my house, and also just pruning my trees, which are very close to the street. As a steward, is that something that you have training on?

Jennifer Greenfeld: Pruning is something really specialized. If you want to do it yourself there's a group called Trees New York, and they run a Citizen Pruner class. If you graduate from their course, then you do have the Parks Department's permission. We certified Trees New York basically to certify citizens to prune your own tree. You can't get up on a ladder, but they give you tips for reaching things and which things should be pruned and shouldn't be pruned.

Brian Lehrer: We're getting a few callers who are very unhappy about what's going on at East River Park in Manhattan, where close to a thousand trees, by their estimation, have been removed as they're completely redoing that park. I know the plan is to plant new young trees but, Commissioner, in the Parks Department I'm sure this is something that you've talked a lot about. Let me take one of those callers and hear from her. Trisha in Windsor Terrace, you're on WNYC. Hi, Trisha.

Trisha: Hi. Good morning, you guys. I went on a walking tour of the East Village green infrastructure a few months ago. One of the things we did is we went down to the East River Park and we saw squirrels and birds, and we saw these beautiful old-growth oaks and native trees and several trees that are resistant to saltwater. The main thing I wanted to talk about, which I'm sure I'm not going to even be able to speak about without sobbing, is there's a new development that's happening in my neighborhood in Windsor Terrace, which was against zoning code and it was right through the elections.

A lot of things happened, but there's this tree that was like in an arboretum. It was about a 7,500-year-old beech tree, which they have a 400-year-old lifespan. The city will be gone and that tree could still be standing. It was inches from the sidewalk, and they took it down as birds and squirrels were nesting. It was one of the most brutal things I've ever seen in my life. They took down an entire row of hardwood trees. They left one tree. I'm also a Citizen Pruner and I'm also a master composter, and I've also just passed my test to be a wildlife rehabber.

The entire connection was city council people talking about more trees. You can't plant a 75-year-old tree. Street trees have hard, hard lives. Most of them are not native. They do not contribute to the ecosystem. They took down this tree and it was a double century, and it was one of the most brutal things I've ever seen in my entire life. We need to really have-- Even in Mississippi, they have laws against taking down old trees because they realize they're green infrastructure. To talk on one hand about that, and the other hand about that, I had to just remove myself from people that asked me to come and protest for East River Park.

When you look at it, it is obvious we need to put oysters in, leave the park there and raise the highway. We need to get it together. We keep talking about this and we are doing nothing.

Brian Lehrer: Trisha, I'm going to leave it there. We've had policy debate segments on the show about that certainly, and I appreciate you raising your voice about that again. Commissioner, for you as an assistant commissioner in the Parks Department, we get attached to our trees. Just last weekend some people were arrested for literally holding on to the trees and stalling their destruction in Corlears Hook Park down there. Can you talk about what that's like for the folks in the Parks Department whose jobs involve caring for trees to see this, and a little bit about what will take their place?

Jennifer Greenfeld: Sure. First of all, I just want to thank Trisha for becoming a Citizen Pruner and caring for her neighborhood trees. We couldn't do it without you and other residents of New York City, so thank you for your commitment to that. It's true my job is to take care of nature. There's an urban forest for every single person who lives and visits New York City, and I love each and every one. There are a lot of hard decisions we make every day. I feel like overall the balance of what we do is creating a better urban forest.

Planting as much wherever we can and as much resources as we have. Saving the ones that are saveable, but sometimes there are some really hard choices to make. I know it's difficult, but it happens every day and all the time for all kinds of things we all value, and trees are one of them.

Brian Lehrer: All right. We're almost out of time. Before we go, Marielle, you're organizing some tree walks this month I see. Do you want to give yourself a quick shout-out?

Marielle Anzelone: Sure. Yes, we're leading some tree walks. We're going to be doing a walk in Van Cortlandt Park, and we're going to be doing another walk in Midtown Manhattan actually looking at different street trees. The walk in the Bronx will be in Van Cortlandt, and that's going to be looking at woodland trees. Then there's a number of different wildflower walks and things coming up. People can go to nycwildflowerweek.org and all of the events are listed there. They're all free and you don't have to know anything.

Brian Lehrer: Jennifer Greenfeld, we just have 10 seconds, but the Parks Department runs nature walks too, don't you?

Jennifer Greenfeld: Yes, absolutely. Our Urban Park Rangers have a host of events, and we also have stewardship events. No costs, no barrier to entry, all listed on our websites.

Brian Lehrer: We leave it there. Let's go enjoy the Callery pears and all the trees in bloom while we can. Thank you Marielle Anzelone, urban botanist and ecologist and the founder of New York City Wildflower Week, and Jennifer Greenfeld, the New York City Parks Department assistant commissioner for forestry, horticulture, and natural resources. We'll do another segment in the BL Tree series in the month of May.

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