Health and management of trees planted in tree pits in Thunder Bay’s downtown north core

Abstract

A survey of Thunder Bay’s downtown north core (formerly known as Port Arthur) examined 276 trees in an attempt to correlate the size and health condition of the trees with the size of the planting site. The largest and most healthy of trees (e.g. silver maple. green ash) were planted in medians located between sidewalks and streets. The smallest trees and often the ones in the poorest health were planted in small planting pits located in sidewalks. The conclusion from this study points to the importance of soil volume for rooting as well as the poor physical properties of soil found in planting pits versus medians.