Spotlight on Casey Clapp
/BY CARA SCHAEFER
Have you looked up at some leaves lately? We spoke with Casey Clapp, arborist and co-host of the podcast Completely Arbortrary, about all things tree-related, from common misconceptions to why you might want to go plant a tree yourself.
Photos courtesy of Casey Clapp.
OUT THERE: So this is gonna be a hard one. What do you love most about trees?
CASEY CLAPP: I think one thing that I like about trees is their dignity. Trees, as they grow, just keep on going. It doesn't matter where they are, because they get one shot at growing and living for as long as they can. They can't decide, “Oh, I think I'm just gonna move over here. I don't like Seattle anymore. I'm going to Denver.” They have to say, “This is where I'm growing, this is my spot.” It's literally do or die. They’re always constantly doing their absolute best with what they have. And most of the time, they're just ridiculously beautiful about it. No matter how we cut them down, they just keep coming back.
OT: As a municipal arborist, what does your average day at work look like?
CC: My normal day would be looking at different trees and different plans for trees. The city code requires that as part of a development or remodeling project you have to maintain, plant, or remove and replant the existing street trees. So my job is to go through all these plans and say, “Okay, you can retain this tree, that's a good tree, here's how to retain it. No, you can't retain that tree, here's what you need to do to get rid of it and replant a new one.” Or look at plans and say, “Okay, there's no trees here at all. So we're going to figure out how to move around all the other different infrastructure pieces in the right way, whether that's driveways, power lines, poles, streetlights, fire hydrants, utility crossings, anything like that.” I do the review to make sure that all of those trees are getting put in properly with good spacing, to make sure that we have street trees as pieces of infrastructure included in all of these new developments.
OT: So what are some of the benefits of planting trees in urban areas?
CC: Oh, what a good question! The benefits of trees are many and varied. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun hits all of our buildings on the south side. So the north side is always shaded, but the south side is really hot. So if you plant a tree there, and that tree grows up over the top of your house, now you're benefiting from that tree. Simply by shading your house, you don't have to spend as much money on air conditioning, you have a more comfortable microclimate, and you can open your window and cool the inside of your house. They also do the same thing with pollution. They help to get rid of ozone and CO2, obviously, because they store carbon.
Trees also help to do some not-so-measurable things as well. Trees have a calming effect. So if you are having a stressful day, just going outside and hearing trees or the wind rustling through trees or seeing the green color provides a calming effect for people, whether or not you know it is happening. Then if you are reducing stress it makes people happier, and when you're making people happier, they're more productive. There's been studies that have seen this and said, “Well, if you have a landscape, even just some kind of grass, you tend to find more satisfaction at your job, and then you're more productive”. There are psychological benefits that you get from trees that you don't have to go out to the forest to get if you have them planted right here in streets, like where I'm walking right now!
OT: Has climate change and its effect on trees changed how you approach your job or trees in general?
CC: For sure. Specifically in the urban area, most trees that are municipally owned are planted in what people call the planter strip, which is that kind of grassy lawn-like area between the curb and the sidewalk. That area specifically, it's kind of left out when everyone's looking at this road. So the soil there is usually just awful. You have to have tough trees.
If you are planting trees that normally, say 30 years ago, would be doing just fine, now those same exact trees would be struggling a lot, because we have higher temperatures during the summer and we have less water falling at other times. They're already in a tough spot to grow and live, and when you add climate change, everything kind of gets exacerbated. So now it's completely untenable.
Also we're planting different trees now. It's kind of a weird transition, where we're seeing certain trees that used to do really well, doing awful, but we're trying to see if we can plant new trees that will change the entire ecosystem up here in terms of what species are more adapted to Northern Oregon.
OT: Do you have a memory of trees that brings warm fuzzies to your heart?
CC: I built a treehouse with my friend Joey, years and years ago. We just had so much fun because we found all this wood and created this massive, complex structure between these two douglas firs. We had electricity out there; we would go to different garage sales around the area and pick out different stuff to add to it. To this day we still talk about it.
OT: What's the most bizarre or coolest tree you've ever heard of?
CC: The banyan tree is probably one of my top favorites in terms of a crazy tree, because the banyan tree grows as a strangler fig. It'll land on top of a branch, send out its roots, grow all the way down to the ground, and then kick over the tree that it just grew on and become a new tree. It just seems so hardcore.
OT: What's the one thing you wish everyone knew about trees, or a tree misconception you would like to clear up?
CC: I think there’s two main ones. The first would be that tree roots do not mirror their upper canopies. You've seen this on a hundred shirts, but in fact they don't. They grow very flat, even those of tall trees like the douglas fir or ponderosa pine. They're more similar to a wine glass, where their roots only grow in the top maybe two to three feet of soil most of the time, but they grow really far out. And so whenever someone says, “Well, we're not even near that tree,” the roots of that tree are probably underneath our feet right now, even though you're 30 feet away.
The second one would be that “trees are dangerous”. That is the thing that bothers me the most, where people are worried about maintenance issues or a tree getting too big. I always don't like that term “too big” of a tree. It’s like saying that the ocean gets too wet. Trees are big. That's their definition. And people a lot of the time see them and think, “Well, that tree is big; therefore it's dangerous”. When in reality the larger and bigger and older the tree, the longer it's been able to adapt to its surroundings. It's been able to put on new wood and add different amounts of structure to it to make sure that it can stand up. So people don't appreciate two main things in regards to that. One, it’s in the tree’s best interest to stand up just the same as it's in your interest that that tree stands up. So don't sell the tree short; that tree’s like, “I hope I don’t fall over. That'd be the single worst thing for me, much less you. You'll rebuild your house. I'll be dead”.
Meanwhile, they also don't appreciate the fact that trees are made of wood. We build our houses of wood, we build decks of wood, we build entire structures made of wood. And we think, well, that's a good structure because we humans engineered it. We didn't. We just took the pieces apart and put them back together in a different way. Trees themselves put each one of those individual cells together to make that wood as strong as it is. So the tree itself is very strong, it's actually doing a pretty good job.
OT: Why should people immediately go listen to your podcast Completely Arbortrary?
CC: I think people should go listen to Completely Arbortrary because it is a show about trees and other related topics. So if you are thinking to yourself, “this has nothing to do with trees”, I am hoping to convince you otherwise. Or at the minimum, I'm hoping that Alex and I can convince you that trees are much more fascinating than anyone really gives them credit for!
