From the Bulletin Newspapers Group of Boston

Earlier in the year when Mayor Thomas Menino announced that he wanted to plant 100,000 tress in Boston by 2020, not only did he lock in the Druid vote for the next election, he made the members of Boston’s Urban Forest Coalition (BUFC) very happy.

John Walkey is the Urban Ecology Institute’s (UEI) Sustainable Cities Program Manager. UEI is one of the members of the BUFC and helped push the mayor to promote the "Grow Boston Greener" campaign.

Currently, Boston’s tree canopy - the city’s tree cover - is around 29 percent. The goal is to up the canopy to around 35 percent.

"Thirty-five percent is doing pretty good for a city like Boston where we don’t exactly have huge tracts of land," Walkey said. "It’s a taller order for us than it is for places that have large planting programs and more land."

When the coalition started surveying and mapping out Boston’s canopy they saw that it wasn’t evenly distributed.

"Of course we had a lot of coverage in West Roxbury and Franklin Park - the southern areas, but in East Boston like around the airport, we have a whole lot fewer trees," Walkey said.

In spite of the land issues and the uneven distribution, Walkey said that the goal is certainly attainable. He said that, nationally, the trend towards greener cities is growing.

"We didn’t expect to convince [the city] so quickly," Walkey said.

According to the coalition’s survey findings, there are 33,918 living trees in Boston and 75 percent of those are in good health. The survey found 694 dead trees.

The Coalition is currently in the process of raising funds and spreading the message of the benefits of trees.

"We’re ramping up and starting to connect this in to a lot of benefits that these trees provide in terms of property values, economic values in terms of air pollution and water run-off control," Walkey said. "It can be a plus for the homeowner, it can be a plus for residents and the city as well."

Walkey said that Harvard’s development of the Allston Science Complex will bring in a lot of trees, but the majority of land that is available to be planted falls in residential properties. For that reason, Pamela Thompson, the manager of adult education at the Arnold Arboretum decided that the people of Boston needed to be educated on the issue.

"We decided to hold a series of free lectures that would give people more information," Thompson said.

The last lecture in the three- part series was held last week. Branching out: Biodiversity in the Urban Forest dealt with the types of trees that would be most viable for Boston to plant.

About 50 people were on hand to listen to Dr. Jeffery Iles from the Department of Horticulture at Iowa State talk on the subject. Iles gave the city high marks for initiative.

"While 100,000 trees by 2020 sounds good," Iles said. "It’s just the beginning . . . it’s a continuous process. It’s more than planting. You also have to be committed to the maintaining of these trees." Iles said that according to the coalition’s survey, the most common type of tree in Boston is the Norway Maple and that a lot of people have told him they were not as desirable due to the seeds they leave behind.

According to Christine Poff of the Franklin Park Coalition, there has been a trend to limit the planting of more Norway Maples.

"They are invasive trees . . . they spread so quickly," she said. "However, I’m mixed about those big trees that are called invasive. I think those big beautiful trees add something."

"You don’t have to sacrifice aesthetics for the sake of diversity," Iles added. He said that biodiversity is important because it helps limit problems such as the attack on Dutch Elm trees that wiped out a large numbers.

Iles offered other suggestions of trees that would be less invasive and still offer diversity in Boston’s green spaces.

Iles said that the Red Maple called Red Sunset is one of the most popular shade trees in the country.

"It’s a great residential street tree, and it’s hard to say anything bad about them," he said.

Previous lectures sponsored by the Arnold Arboretum included information on special soil that helps city trees thrive and another lecture on what the effects of living near green spaces can have on people’s outlook and health.

Thompson said that she hopes to continue the lecture series in the Spring.