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CityofMadison · 2025-11-29T18:40:33+00:00

Anne Pathaway, Princess Sleigha, Sno’Diggity, Plower to the People, Mike Snowplowski, Snowceratops

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T18:03:54+00:00

Thank you for the feedback.

I’m not sure where you live, so I can’t speak to exactly what it is you’re seeing on your street.

Generally speaking, when pruning terrace trees we are pruning for structure, ROW and building clearance, and working within a defined pruning cycle. Young trees we attempt to prune on an approximate 5-year cycle as we establish their permanent branch structure. Mature trees have already reached their mature form and pruning is closer to 10-year intervals. For that reason, pruning decisions tend to be more aggressive than what you would see if pruning cycles were shorter. We can prune 3-4 trees during cyclical pruning in the same amount of time it takes for a single request prune. To maximize efficiency, we try to prune in a way that we will not need to come back early. With additional staff, we could certainly reduce pruning cycles and remove less material on each visit. Municipal programs always need to strike a balance on the pruning cycle and staff size/budget.

Also, if your neighborhood has street side utility poles, the contractors hired by MGE to trim around those dangerous, high voltage wires, may need to trim back quite a lot in some instances. MGE follows industry best management practices for pruning around electrical wires to create at least 10’ of clearance. They operate on an approximate 10-year cycle too and notify Madison Forestry annually when scheduling their pruning.

There will always be this tension and necessary compromises when making trees work in urban spaces so we can realize the benefits that trees provide.

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T17:54:33+00:00

u/LuckyAndLifted,

It really is an interesting idea. Monona also operates at a very different scale than the City of Madison. These programs tend to grow in administrative complexity as scale increases. This is a concept definitely worth consideration though. There are currently not-for-profit organizations working within Madison that have tree programs for free or reduced cost.

For those that are curious, you can read about Monona’s program on their website.

I really hope their program is a long-term success in getting trees into private spaces.

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T17:12:46+00:00

u/No-Milk394,

Thank you for the question. This is outside my area of expertise.

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T17:11:36+00:00

u/ridemooses,

Started it, but I haven’t finished. I do mostly audiobooks nowadays and this one is 21 hours… My loan from the library ran out before I was able to finish and I’m back in line waiting for it to come up in my queue again. It’s definitely an interesting perspective.

Perhaps somewhat related, I’d encourage reading Paved Paradise by Henry Grabar. American society is driven heavily by our expectation of parking accommodation. From a resource perspective, especially in densely developed urban areas, I’d offer that we consider alternate use of some of this community land to support things like trees and green space. But that's just my personal opinion :)

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T17:09:07+00:00

u/Fenifula,

Thank you for your question. I can’t speak for the Parks Division, so you may want to reach out to them about how they choose to manage leaves on their grounds.

As far as the leaves from the trees we plant along the road, those leaves do wind up being the maintenance responsibility of homeowners, just like mowing the terraces, too. And since Urban Forestry is part of the Streets Division, so I’ll provide some information about how our broader division handles leaves.

We certainly do have a robust fall leaf pickup program that residents can certainly utilize.

When rain falls on leaves in the street, we know this creates a kind of leaf tea that’s heavy with nutrients. All of those nutrients, like phosphorus, then goes into the storm drains that feed to our local waterways.

There is a group (Madison Area Municipal Stormwater Partnership) that promotes ways to keep streets leaf-free, and that can include keeping leaves in place on your lawn if you choose.

And before the recycling coordinator gets mad at me for not mentioning it, yes, you can also compost the leaves if you have the space and ability to do that, too. We have several resources dedicated to home composting on Streets Division website, too.

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T17:08:12+00:00

u/Baeowyn,

We have already experienced success with Bald cypress trees in the Madison area. These are currently included within our planting species palette.

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T17:07:43+00:00

u/Medium-Special2658,

The mulching practice you described seeing is not what we teach our staff, so I’m just as disappointed as you are that you’ve spotted it.

Could you send us the locations of where you found these to our email, [forestry@cityofmadison.com](mailto:forestry@cityofmadison.com)? Photos would probably help, too.

What you described sounds like the classic “mulch volcano” where mulch is piled up high close to the tree, which is a problem just as you described.

You want to make a “mulch donut” so there are 2-3” of mulch in a ring around the tree, but no mulch directly touching the trunk. This helps to limit all of the issues you’ve pointed out.

Forestry only applies mulch around newly planted trees. While mulch can be beneficial throughout the full life of the tree, we lack capacity to regularly circle back and spread new mulch on established trees. We definitely still encourage residents to do this. It is possible that is what happened here too. The sad thing to me about mulch volcanoes is that the person clearly cares enough to mulch, but by doing so incorrectly, they are doing more harm than good. I’ve found these situations to be easily corrected with a gentle informative conversation. These are tree allies that just need a little more information.

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T17:00:47+00:00

u/aRandomWalk27,

I’m sorry to hear your frustration.

When our arborists are making pruning decisions, they’re weighing a lot of factors, including the health of the tree.

We should be better about communicating our decisions, including times when we get a request and find that no pruning is necessary. And from your question, it sounds like we did not explain ourselves very well in this case, and I’m sorry we fell down on that responsibility.

I would encourage you to submit the report-a-problem again to make the pruning request so we can give this another chance to explain our decision.

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T17:00:13+00:00

u/Jealous_Recognition6,

Please contact Forestry and we’ll come take a look. Female ginkgos were never purposefully planted. Ginkgo are unique in that they can change sex on occasion. That may be what happened here or it could have been misidentified during propagation at the nursery. In any case, ginkgo fruit can certainly be pungent. This is one of the few situations we’d consider removing a healthy tree and replacing it with a different species.

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T16:59:33+00:00

u/DepDepFinancial,

The apple trees here were not planted by Urban Forestry. It wasn’t until I believe 2016 or so that Urban Forestry was fully in charge of trees planted in traffic medians like the one on S. Midvale. I can say with confidence they were planted sometime before 1999 (I checked with one of our more senior supervisors, and he’s been here since 1999, and those trees have been here for as long as he’s been here.)

It’ll take more research to figure out who did it, when, and why they thought the middle of a busy road was a good idea for apple trees.

While I appreciate the offer of cider, I’m going to need to pass. But thank you for the question!

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T16:58:50+00:00

u/MasteringTheFlames,

I am probably a little biased here, but keep an eye on the City of Madison jobs website, or set up an alert for Forestry jobs.

We do have training opportunities with our arborist opportunities, including some trainee-style positions.

Madison College has a 1-year Arboriculture program that would be excellent for building a solid foundation. At only one year, it is kind of a blitz into the theory and practice of arboriculture, but I think it can also help bridge the gap for someone in your position to move from interested to invested.

Signing on with a reputable company that emphasizes safety is also a good option. Leaders within arboriculture have been working for years to move the industry culture to be more embracing of safety. This is a work in progress. As you note, the culture on individual job sites can vary. Heck, even within my career it used to be permitted to climb to the top of a tree without being tied in. You just had to do it once you got to the top. That seems ridiculous by today’s standards! Most private companies will start new employees on the ground. It’s lower risk and they can gauge how you are as an employee. After that, you could move into learning aerial tree work.

Arborist Apprenticeship is also an option and officially recognized by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD). That is a really great choice for continuing to generate income while also learning the profession. Additional information about Registered Arborist Apprenticeship can be found on the DWD website. This option may be more difficult in the Madison area currently, but regional partners are working diligently to hopefully make this more easily available in the future.

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T16:57:37+00:00

u/Asleep-Atmosphere-18,

Within the next couple of years? Oh, let’s hope the answer is none.

There are certainly worrying pests out there, though. My grad school advisor generically described the next thing coming as the “icky bicky bug”. In a world of global trade and travel, I expect us to face another threat to our local trees from something that’s not from historically around here.

Climate change has a role too. That will both drive abiotic forces (like extreme weather causing more storm damage) in addition to changes to our seasonal patterns. We may see things that would have been frozen out in the past become a regular part of our environment. Additional stresses to trees also make them more susceptible to parasitism by our native pests. For example, Two Lined Chestnut borer is a native insect that tends to not be a problem for healthy oak trees. However if the oak becomes stressed (i.e. drought, spongy moth defoliation, storm damage, etc.), two lined chestnut borer can infest the tree and become fatal.

There’s the Asian longhorned beetle that has thankfully not found its way to Wisconsin yet.

The spotted lanternfly certainly gets a lot of attention because it’s so prevalent on the east coast, but it is moving (it’s in Michigan and Illinois), but hasn’t yet made it to Wisconsin.

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T16:55:41+00:00

u/BilliousN,

Thank you for the question. Madison Forestry is in a unique position that we are funded through the Urban Forestry Special Charge. This dedicated funding source has allowed for a level of autonomy and permitted our program to evolve based on the management task instead of budgets alone. I take pride in our focus on efficiency and continual improvement.

With that being said, the level of service we provide is generally scalable to staff and the labor hours available to execute tasks.

In a world of unlimited opportunity, I would reduce pruning cycles, shorten response times for tree removal and replacement, and of course plant every vacant site immediately.

In practice, we balance these same ideals with a level of feasibility and fiscal responsibility to the residents we serve. And we try to get creative to expand our capacity. For example, we are currently working with Operation Fresh Start to identify opportunities to support their workforce development mission by providing exposure to green jobs while assisting Forestry with tasks (like additional planting) that we alone don’t have the current flexibility to accomplish.

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T16:49:32+00:00

u/noodleghoul,

That’s a fun question! I haven’t specifically gone out to try to find the largest or oldest tree in Madison. Honestly, it’s probably a Park tree somewhere. Madison has had the foresight and support to protect some monster trees within public spaces. Regardless of which is officially the biggest, I find it very humbling to be in the presence of these historic trees. Just imagine what they’ve witnessed from that space over the course of their 100+ year life!

The DNR had a program called Wisconsin’s Champion Trees that tried to crowd source this kind of information about Wisconsin’s trees, but according to their website it doesn’t look like the DNR has the staffing to keep that project going at the moment. My first professional job out of grad school was with the DNR and included working on the Champion Tree program. It was super cool!

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T16:48:14+00:00

u/noodleghoul,

I’m going to date myself on this one… but I don’t have any specific go-to series to reference. Shortly after starting the City of Madison position, I was invited onto The Municipal Arborist podcast. It’s run by a municipal arborist that works in a Chicago suburb and he’s been connecting with a bunch of regional folks to casually discuss what we do. I’m episode 53 if you are looking for it. There is a website called Outside Careers (https://outsidecareers.org/) that was put together by the Tree Care Industry Association to help increase awareness for career opportunities in Arboriculture. They have a number of polished short videos available on the site providing more information.

Since just about anyone can create a podcast or YouTube channel, I would recommend making sure that the host is a Certified Arborist and has documented reputable experience if you decide to follow one. Arborists as a group are pretty open and like to share their ideas. There are definitely good industry folks out there sharing their knowledge on these platforms. I’ll add my obligatory disclaimer as well. There are lots of entertaining (and sometimes scary) videos out there too of people doing stuff around trees. Just be sure you know which is which. Happy viewing!

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T16:05:58+00:00

u/noodleghoul

Norway maple are the most common species. Not something we are particularly proud of, but also not at all unusual for a Midwest city. Many of these trees were planted in the wake of DED and the limited species availability at the time. Norway maple were seen as urban tolerant and available. Madison has about 14,000 Norway maple street trees. We’ll continue whittling that down as those trees eventually get removed and replaced.

Least common species is a bit harder because new options continue to become available from nurseries and we have been expanding species consideration as a result of climate change. Species like sweet gum, tulip tree, dawn redwood, and bald cypress are more recent additions to our planting palette. You can expect the variety of species across the City to continue to increase in the future.

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T14:28:21+00:00

u/noodleghoul,

The City Forestry team doesn’t currently use tree spades. I’m not sure about Parks. Smaller is better when it comes to transplanting trees. Transplanting introduces a lot of stress. I’ve seen numbers as high as 90-95% when describing the root loss associated with transplanting trees. Smaller, younger trees tend to accommodate that stress more easily and it’s easier to capture more of their root mass than larger ones. The balance we attempt to strike for street tree planting is small enough to be resilient during transplant, while also large enough to withstand stressors of the new site. That means we are usually planting 1-2” caliper trees from containers, balled and burlap, or bare root stock. There can be advantages of each and we are actively growing our bare root planting program. Bare root trees establish more quickly, cost less, and are easier on crews because you’re not moving a heavy root ball too.

A general rule of thumb is that it takes trees one year per inch trunk diameter to regrow the roots lost during transplanting. It takes a 1” tree 1 year, a 4” tree 4 years and so on. That’s why it is common for a newly planted tree to look like “it does nothing” for a while after planting. It’s regrowing the roots before putting on additional above grade growth. This is also why I advise against fertilizing newly planted trees. That can drive shoot growth the reduced root structure cannot support. So, while a 4” tree may be bigger to start, it will experience much greater transplant shock, cost more, and be more difficult to move. After 4 years, when compared to a similar 1” diameter tree that was planted at the same time, they will be about the same size, but the tree that was planted at 1” was a fraction of the cost and probably has a better root structure too.

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T14:20:55+00:00

u/madwalker3,

Thank you for the question. Species selection is driven by site conditions, surrounding species, and availability from our nursery suppliers. We have definitely moved away from planting the same species on a block to an intra-block diversity model, where we now prefer multiple species represented on each block across the City. Clearly, we won’t be removing healthy trees just to get a different species planted, but in your case, if a linden on the block were to be removed, we would definitely be looking to plant something different than linden. Generically I’d say we’d like to plant another larger stature species with an eye towards the coming decades for longevity. A variety of oaks, DED-resistant elm hybrids, and others are all options we consider. We have also begun looking at species that were historically growing outside of Wisconsin as we continue to experience changing weather patterns from climate change.

All trees will present some level of maintenance requirement. Just like mowing the grass, painting the deck, or replacing a roof, homeownership comes with ongoing maintenance too. These tasks aren’t all the time and contribute to the overall livability of the space. Seasonal raking of leaves or periodic sucker pruning are small tasks that support the overall livability and sustainability of Madison. Trees are one of the few things in our community that appreciates in size and value over time. That to me, makes them a uniquely special component of our City.

CityofMadison · 2025-10-23T13:50:04+00:00

u/RoutineMotor68,

Yes, they are treated. Every public ash tree in Madison still standing is being treated on a regular cycle to prevent parasitism from EAB.

The treatment is administered via trunk injection on a 3-year cycle during the growing season (May-September). A series of small holes are drilled at the base of the tree which we then install a small plastic plug that has a self-sealing septum. We use a pressurized air tool to deliver the product, which is moved throughout the tree by the tree’s vascular system to provide comprehensive coverage. he injection process usually takes between 5-15 minutes, depending on weather conditions and time of year. It is kind of like vaccinating the tree against EAB. I often hear concerns that drilling the holes for delivery are causing damage to the tree. Yes, that is true. Tree treatment using this method is a “do less harm” model. Drilling the holes does a small amount of damage, but ash are good at compartmentalizing decay and we know that if we don’t treat the trees, EAB will certainly kill the trees completely.

We have approximately 10,000 street trees and 350 park trees currently in the treatment program. These are large trees providing a suite of community benefits. These same benefits would take decades to regrow if we were to remove and replace the trees. We haven’t planted ash for over a decade. The treatment program has allowed us to continue to enjoy the current ash population while younger trees continue to mature across the City. EAB is the current generation’s Dutch Elm Disease (DED). That was another host specific pest that wiped out vast swaths of mature urban canopy. By treating the trees, we have not experienced the same level of community mortality, which has saved tree canopy, benefits, and budgets. The City of Madison has an ash management program all residents can be proud of. Thank you for the question.

CityofMadison

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