Link Ahead with the City of Dublin, Ohio
Link Ahead with the City of Dublin, Ohio
Why 'Pruning With Purpose' Protects Your Trees And Your Neighborhood
What makes a city full of trees feel cooler, safer and more alive? How do you actually keep that canopy thriving? And what illnesses and diseases should you be looking out for? Lindsay and Bruce welcome City Forester Jeff Myers, a Certified Master Arborist, to answer those questions and many more! With nearly three decades serving our City, Jeff pulls back the curtain on how suburban forestry really works, from the science behind pruning to the system that tracks our 33,000 street trees.
We walk through the boundaries between city and resident responsibilities and why Dublin pairs sidewalk repairs with supervised root pruning. Jeff explains why late fall is your prime time for pruning, what 'live crown ratio' means for a tree’s stability, and how different species demand different pruning cycles. You’ll hear why topping weakens trees, how to use the three‑cut method, and what a good branch collar cut looks like.
We also get candid about current threats and trends. Anthracnose flared up after a cool, wet spring while emerald ash borer remains at low but watchful levels. Drought stress lingers into the next season, so Jeff lays out when watering helps and when the root zone is simply too big to make a difference. Along the way, he shares how GIS maps show live pruning zones plus why Dublin holds contractors to a higher bar with on‑site certified arborists on every job.
If you care about your street, your shade and your safety, this conversation gives you clear, actionable guidance to protect the trees you love. Follow the show and share it with a neighbor who has 'that one problem maple'. We guarantee they'll thank you for it!
Hello and welcome to Link Ahead, the City of Dublin podcast. Well, if you're walking, biking, or driving around Dublin right now, there is still a burst of color on a lot of trees, but also a lot of leaves on the ground already, Bruce.
SPEAKER_04:That is right, Lindsay. We covered our leaf collection services a couple of episodes ago. So this episode is all about trees because late fall begins, the most appropriate time to prune trees in Dublin.
SPEAKER_01:And we have an expert with us today who can give us all some great tips for healthy trees in our yards, plus the infections and disease to watch for. Let's welcome City Forester Jeff Myers to the show. Hi, Jeff.
SPEAKER_00:Hi, thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you so much for being here. We can't wait to dig into your background because you studied forestry in college. You're a certified master arborist, and you've been with the city for nearly three decades. So you are officially designating you an expert.
SPEAKER_04:So as you know, Jeff, Dublin has been passionately committed for decades to conserve and protect our trees and to plant more of them. So why are trees so important for everything from the air we breathe to the stormwater protection?
SPEAKER_00:One of the big things is trees, especially in this climate, are great filters. They capture carbon, carbon sequestration. They can filter even carbon monoxide out of the atmosphere. Their roots hold the ground in place. They affect the local climate. They can actually make it warmer in the winter, cooler in the summer, and they they just help ex extend uh the lives of people who live around them. There's been a lot of studies about uh better health outcomes when there's a lot of green infrastructure. It's being built into a lot of hospitals now, like Dublin Methodist has kind of the green area at the center. And they've connected that with just greater longevity in general and higher property values. There's just the list is endless.
SPEAKER_01:We love trees. So let's help our listeners better understand the city's forestry and tree pruning program because there's so much more thought, process, and standards that go into it than most of our residents probably know. So what trees are our responsibility here at the city, and what trees are the residents' responsibilities?
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell So the City is responsible for maintaining all the trees in the right-of-way and then in our park system. In the forestry program, we maintain all the trees that are between the curb and the sidewalks, those are the street trees. Pruning, replacement, removals if it's needed, uh disease and insect treatments, uh, especially if we have an insect that's really going to cause devastating damage. Um the residents are responsible for mulching the trees. And then after we plant new trees, we'll water them for the first season. But then if the residents can water them after that, it definitely helped helps and goes a long way.
SPEAKER_04:Nice. All right. Specific example. If the roots of a tree, for example, abnormally lift in a piece of sidewalk from underneath, and that tree is between the sidewalk and the street, whose responsibility is that?
SPEAKER_00:So it's interesting, in a lot of other cities, that would be the residents' responsibility. But the city of Dublin has taken on the responsibility for repairing the sidewalks. They have a sidewalk replacement program. And we're involved in that because when they pull up the panels and have to replace them, they got to remove those roots so they don't continue to push up. So one of our staff arborists is there to supervise the root cutting and to assess the tree for stability to make sure it's still going to survive. It's not going to be a hazardous to the public. And that way they make good cuts, so we reduce the risk of infection getting into the tree afterwards. And we supervise them putting in root barrier as well, so that way the roots don't go back under, so we're not just doing this again in a few years.
SPEAKER_04:What is a root barrier?
SPEAKER_00:So a root barrier, the one that we use, it's a fabric that's impregnated with a herbicide. Now it's a contact-only herbicide. So what it does is it kills the root tip as it tries to regrow, because those roots are going to try to grow back out. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're going to try to grow in the same orientation they were before generally. So they're going to hit that herbicide. So it's not a systemic herbicide, so it doesn't travel back into the tree. It only kills that tip. And roots carry what's called adventitious buds on the sides that'll cause the root to fire out at a 90-degree angle and makes it effectively turn.
SPEAKER_01:Um so one of the most important reasons we prune trees is for public safety. Can you talk about that and the other reasons we do it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the reasons why we prune trees, obviously, yes, public safety is paramount, but you know, to keep them out of the way of vehicular traffic, keep them out of headspace, um, also for stability and for structural improvement in the tree. Because trees evolve to grow in the woods. And where light is the biggest competitive competing factor, and that's where they are genetically programmed to reach for light, and then the other factor is uh gravity. So we call it phototrophism and geotrophism. Those are the two forces that govern a tree's growth, light being the most limiting. Well, in a forest setting, the trees go straight up. They have a nice solid trunk, they're straight, good structure. Trees do best when the weight is straight down. They hold aga well against gravity. They don't hold well against being twisted or if they're off-center. So now we've taken this tree out of the woods, removed the light competition. Now the branches can just go in any direction. Sure. And so sometimes we have to step in and correct that structure to make sure that that weight is still centered.
SPEAKER_01:I think I just got smarter, Bruce. And Lindsay, this is a common theme.
SPEAKER_04:I know we say this in all of our podcasts, but it's like we have experts in so many areas of the city.
SPEAKER_01:I didn't know any of that, so thank you.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's awesome. I didn't even think about it. They're fighting for light when they're in the forest. Now all of a sudden they're out there. All right. So we also follow two industry standards when pruning. So broadly, can you describe what those standards are?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So the two standards that govern the arbicultural industry are the A300 standard, which governs the practices. That's how we do the work, how you prune a tree, what you should and shouldn't do, the amount you should take off, how you improve the structure, what your goals are. Uh the other industry standard is a Z133. That's the safety standard. That's where OSHA comes in, because those are the practices where you're supposed to wear your hard hat, you have to wear chainsaw chaps. I mean, those are the things that protect us in the industry because it's it's dangerous. The arbicultural industry, uh loggers, they're kind of all lumped together. They've been kind of jumping around being the uh most dangerous profession. You know, you've got police officers, you've got crab fishermen, you know, those are always up there, and so are loggers, and we're all kind of in that industry. Walking around with the chainsaw.
SPEAKER_04:That's not what we're doing on a daily basis, Lindsay.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Powell, Jr. Right. Well, I know you guys uh stick to those safety standards. Um back to kind of um how much we prune the trees, because we do hear this from residents from time to time uh when they say, oh, you know, they cut the trees back too far. Can you talk a little bit about that standard and why the trees are pruned as extensively as they are?
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell Our Street Tree Ordinance states that the trees have to be maintained 14 feet over the road, eight feet over the sidewalk. Those are the you know written clearances that we have to maintain. So ideally, we don't want the tree to be lopsided. We'd like it to be even. And some smaller trees, you can't necessarily get that 14 feet over the road, so it requires a little bit more nuanced pruning. And so there's another standard that's actually in the A300, it's called the live crown ratio, where you want 60% of the tree to be foliated. And so I write that into the contracts to try to make sure that they maintain that, and that's your limit. If the tree's too small to get 14 feet, then there's other things you have to do, but we still want that tree to be stable, don't want it to be too top-heavy, because then you run into stability issues.
unknown:All right.
SPEAKER_04:And Jeff, you kind of talked about this that when you know people come in and work, that you have to be on site to make sure things are certified. So when we hire contractors, you know, what is that process like? How do you say, okay, you're allowed to touch this tree or you're not allowed to touch this tree?
SPEAKER_00:So we put out a printing contract every year. Um, it goes through a competitive bidding process, but written into that contract are requirements that there has to be a certified arborist on site and when all work is performed and not within phone contact, they have to be on site. And then for each crew they have, there has to be an arborist. And then I will go out and meet with the arborists individually, and I try to communicate to them because how other municipalities prune trees is not how Dublin does it. We have a much higher standard, and we've been told that before. I've actually had some complaints about that. You're too strict. Um But yeah, and I explained to them, you know, this is what it means to prune a tree in Dublin. Wow.
SPEAKER_01:So some trees are on a one-to-two-year pruning cycle while others are on a three to five year cycle. Give us some examples of each.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So the trees that are gonna be on a more frequent cycle are going to be younger trees. Like linden trees are legendary for their growth rate. They can get really hairy very quickly. Um, especially if we have a nice, cool, wet spring. They we had one this year, the lindens just went crazy. Um then later on, as the trees get older, we can spread that cycle out more. Um so yeah, we're we uh look at every tree in the city every three years. If it needs it, we'll do them every three. There are some trees like uh ginkgos that don't need to be pruned, but once every five years or so.
SPEAKER_01:Well, thank you for bringing up the Linden tree. The name Lindsay is is from the Linden Tree Island, is what the name Lindsay means. I learned that in the fourth grade.
SPEAKER_04:So a little trivia for you. That is impressive. All right. Speaking of trees, though, is there I mean, you've been here 30 years. So has there what how is it ebb and flowed? Like, was there, hey, everybody, let's do this kind of tree, and then all of a sudden that changes. Like what is what is a tree that we don't plant anymore in the city?
SPEAKER_00:Oh boy. It's a good thing you said that. Um so that happens about every in my experience, about every 10 to 15 years, there's the new greatest thing. Sure. That's the way it is in communications, too. You know, it was the silver maple in the 50s, and then the Bradford Pear, 60s, 70s, and then it was the Freeman Maple, and then the Canada red cherries came out a few years ago, which then were great until they all got black knot and started fading out. They were resistant to begin with, but then you know, the disease what did what diseases do, and they mutate to follow their hosts, so they all got it. And so I'm I'm waiting for the next big thing to come around. I haven't heard of one yet. I mean, there's a lot of cultivars floating around. The big thing now is nativars that they're talking about.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. I have one of those trees with black knot at my house. What do I can it be treated, or do I just need to cut it down?
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell Honestly, the if you call a tree company, they're gonna say, yeah, we we can treat it.
SPEAKER_03:It'll never be the same.
SPEAKER_00:The short answer is no. You can prolong its life by pruning it and try to get ahead of it, but we've tried that, and in our experience, it's just so hard to get all of it out, and then you've got so many around it that'll just re-infect it.
SPEAKER_04:All right. So not so morbid topic. We have 33,000 street trees in the city of Dublin, and we used to keep all that stuff in the Excel spreadsheet. We have all the GIS data now for all that stuff. So what is it like tracking the cycles of all of those trees?
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Ross Powell Well, it's actually not not that bad. Um so I still maintain the Excel spreadsheet. There is still a root Excel they are uh Polychope, the first Forester set set that up back in the 80s, and we still I still use it. Okay. I still maintain it. There's just some reporting features that it has that I just really like and I'm old school and I still use it. But we also use the GIS database, and we can track you know when trees are done based on the work order times and all that. So we have both. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Do you know if that GIS data is available to residents to track and see where um the tr where the pruning is happening?
SPEAKER_00:So yes, we have a on on our forestry page on the website, there's a map, and it shows all the trees lit up that are in the current contract.
SPEAKER_03:Nice.
SPEAKER_00:And we actually have three contractors working in a city right now, and that's why there's three colors. And so as those trees are completed, I'll close the work orders and those uh spots will go away. Awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we said at the top of the show, late fall is the time we start to dig into the pruning effort. Are trees now in their dormant season?
SPEAKER_00:They're getting there. They're not completely dormant, but now is not a bad time. Um the real things we're worrying about are uh in this area, oak wilt. It's been discovered around us, so we have to avoid pruning oaks when the beetles that vector that disease are active. So uh U.S. Forest Service, I think, is saying right now it was October 1st. I think they've started to push that back towards November. But uh right now is a good time if you want to prune the oak trees, you're fine. I mean, dormant season, yes, yeah, you're absolutely right. That's the best time. That's when the least diseases are there, it's when the trees are not actively growing that can compartmentalize those wounds well in the spring.
SPEAKER_04:And doing our research for the episode, we know that infections and diseases like root rot and twig blight, just to name a few, can affect our trees. So, what is going on out there now? I know that we have all this stuff going on. What's the one thing that's out there affecting our trees right now?
SPEAKER_00:Uh there's actually several. Uh, we did have a pretty bad year for anthrachnose this year. We saw it a lot on maples and oaks. It's kind of a catch-all kind of uh name for a group of fungi. We saw a lot of it in the spring. Okay. Um those wet, cool springs are what favor its development. It overwinters in the leaves from the previous season, and then it releases the spores in the spring, reinfects the new young leaves. The younger leaves don't have that thick cuticle on them yet, so they're not as resistant to those fungal hyphae, the little hairs on the fungus actually penetrating the leaf. They're not as resistant to that. It settles in in the spring, and then you see it in the summer is when it really starts to take off. And so that's when we get the calls in the summer, but the infection actually happened in the spring.
SPEAKER_04:Gotcha. Now, have we beaten ash borer? Like, is that still an issue?
SPEAKER_00:So the boarer's still here. Uh the populations are very low. Uh, we put out traps every three to five years. We put out traps last year. Uh U.S. Forest Service said that uh 50 individuals on one trap is considered low. We had 10 individuals across 10 traps. So it's very low, but it's still here, so we can't necessarily quit treating because we don't want it to re-fire up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Let's talk a little bit about your team. So you're the city forester. How many arborists do we have on staff? Tell us what what is on your team, who how many people are on your team and what you guys are doing this fall and winter.
SPEAKER_00:There's myself, there's four assistant foresters, uh, Steve Spillers, Jocelyn Nurr, Mike Sturz, and Matt Swanson. And then we just created a what the new position was just created a forestry worker, and that's Alex Fotas. He's our first worker. And we all have uh all of my assistant foresters are all certified arborists. Uh Alex is actually working towards his right now. Steve, Jocelyn, Mike, and I have all worked together more than 20 years. Matt was actually a seasonal of ours. He went to Columbus and then came back a few years back. So yeah, we have a very tenured team, and we take a lot of ownership. We've planted a lot of these trees so we can see them as ours.
SPEAKER_04:What is that like when you're walking somewhere? You obviously have planted a tree that's over 7,500 feet tall. I mean, when you walk through the city, are there trees that you just point out and they're like, that's it's one of ours, that's one of ours?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. There are um a lot of trees that I can point to and say, Oh, I remember when I planted that one. Or, you know, it it's not like every single one because it's 28 years, it's been thousands, but there are certain individuals where something happened that day, you know, that you just remember like um kind of a sad thing, but I remember when um 9-11 happened, and I remember exactly what tree I was pruning and what street I was on when I heard it on the radio.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, it's incredible. You guys are so proud of the work that you do, and you should be. Uh, we've been a Tree City USA as a city for nearly four decades. So you've been integral in helping us maintain that rock star status. Uh, what does this designation mean to you?
SPEAKER_00:Tree City USA is a recognition program. It recognizes communities that put a high importance on trees and and how they help their communities and with their quality of life. So the Tree City USA program has uh four requirements. So there has to be uh you have to have an Arbor Day celebration, you have to spend at least two dollars per capita on tree care. There has to be a tree board or a forestry department, and then there needs to be a uh a tree ordinance.
SPEAKER_01:Great.
SPEAKER_00:Which we have all those.
SPEAKER_01:I was gonna say, should I ask how much per capita we pay per tree? No.
SPEAKER_04:All right, so Jeff, a weather-related question. As of this month, you know, 26% of the state is still under drought conditions. Um, you know, from Dayton to Columbus, Youngstown, there's there's so much that, you know, we forgot that it didn't rain for quite a while there. So what does the drought do to the tree? Do we ever get caught up on it?
SPEAKER_00:It really causes stress. I mean, that's that's the main thing it does. Um, I mean, we've we have had a little bit more mortality this year. It's not like killing the healthy trees. They were trees that were already very stressed to begin with. Um, but often that stress will show up the next season. Okay. We don't necessarily see it this year. Last year's drought was a little more devastating because it was midsummer. It was longer. A fall drought is bad, but I'm not worried as much because the trees are already kind of in their storage mode when they get into fall. So hoping we don't have as bad of a year next spring, but I'd I think we'll be all right.
SPEAKER_04:Is there any way to get caught up like right now? No. Because it's going dormant. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, for for younger, smaller trees, yeah, supplemental watering certainly helps, but for larger trees, that root zone is so large that it's really not practical.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Powell Well, and this is a problem in our own backyards. Um, let's pivot and give our listeners some great takeaways so that their trees can stay beautiful and healthy as well. Uh you say prune with a purpose. What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00:So when you prune with a purpose, you don't just want to go out and you know, cut on the tree. You need to have a purpose in mind. For most people, it's clearance.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Getting it out of headspace. And other times people see a tree and they're afraid of how big it is, they're gonna fall on my house. And so, you know, that leads to some practices like topping, things like that, which obviously we don't want to do because in the long run, that actually leads to worse stability. The trees actually become more hazardous if they've been topped because the new sprouts are weakly attached. That's why you always want to make sure you hire a good arborist, somebody who's certified. And then a little side note too um, if you're if you're gonna hire an arborist for your own homework, make sure that they are bonded and insured. Because if somebody you hire drops a branch on your house, your homeowner's insurance will not cover you in Ohio.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, good tip. Good to know on that one.
SPEAKER_00:All right.
SPEAKER_04:So, how much should residents know about the tree species before they start pruning?
SPEAKER_00:So, species is important because it kind of goes with that purpose where you need to have an idea of what the branch structure should look like. You're not gonna prune a maple the same way that you would say prune a linden. They have different growth habits, different structures. Obviously, you're looking for that strong central leader. You know, you're trying to clear out um any crossing branches in the interior. Um, you know, you have your clearance needs, obviously, and that's gonna be universal. You know, you don't want the tree to be in your way or cause damage to it by hitting it with your mow or anything like that. But at the same time, you have to kind of have an idea of what that tree should look like so you can plan your branch selections because younger trees you're gonna want to plan, you know, this is gonna be a scaffold branch or a branch that's always gonna be on this tree. So how do you want to space these out? That that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01:I've heard about the three-cut method. What exactly is that?
SPEAKER_00:If you just cut a branch off at the tree, if it's a larger branch, it can rip and it will tear into the trunk. Well, there's an interface between the trunk where it transitions into a branch. And it's hard to imagine, but how a branch grows, it initiates from that trunk, and as it grows every year, the trunk actually uh loops over it. So it's kind of like uh woven together. So each year that branch grows, a new layer of the trunk wraps over it. And so you got these series of wraps, and that's why branches are so strongly attached. So you need to cut it at that interface where you got the branch bark ridge, and that is where it transitions from the branch to the trunk. And that's where there are chemicals there that the tree perceives the wound and then starts to heal it over.
SPEAKER_04:All right, Jeff, I know you've talked about not to top trees. Exactly what is topping a tree, and how do we not do that?
SPEAKER_00:So topping is the indiscriminate cutting. Um it's where they arbitrarily whoever's doing the work picks a height. Sometimes it's the landowner just says, Hey, I want these trees cut to this height, and they just cut them right across.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Well, the problem is if you're just indiscriminately cutting, you're exposing all that wood to potential rot and decay, and you're not cutting it at a part where the tree can react. Okay. Because the goal is to get those wounds to close. The longer they're open, the more chance you have for an infection, for uh diseases to set in that can then cause the tree to rot.
SPEAKER_01:So what is the biggest mistake residents make when pruning?
SPEAKER_00:Uh what I see a lot um on resident prune trees uh is stubs.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00:Where the the branches aren't cut back to the collar. And and I can understand that too, because they're afraid of cutting too much off. They don't want to damage the tree. But then if you leave a stub, that dies because there's no uh photosynthetic material there to keep that branch alive. There has to be leaves on the end because the water is drawn through the tree by the leaves. It's not necessarily pushed up except in the spring when they're just leafing out.
SPEAKER_01:All right, Jeff. Well, um, I hope you've listened to Link Ahead before, and you know that we end every episode with rapid fire questions, and we are going to keep with the tree theme, and I'm gonna ask you what is your favorite tree and why?
SPEAKER_00:Uh my favorite tree is the burroak.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, burroak.
SPEAKER_00:There's a very large one on the OSU campus where I got my uh degree from. Thanks. Well, shout out to the high stickers. Um there's a very large burroak that I was just so impressed with. Uh some of the branches were over 40 feet long. This tree was huge. And I I'm hoping it's still there. I haven't been there in a while, but that really just kind of cemented okay, that's my favorite tree.
SPEAKER_04:All right, so insider's scoop now. Uh this is for listeners only. When the leaves are changing color, where's the best place to look for fall foliage in Dublin?
SPEAKER_00:In Dublin, I do like the trees along a riverside, especially the transition zones right there. There's a lot of those riparian trees like your sycamores, things like that, that they have a nice transition color with the backdrop of the river is really cool. Awesome.
SPEAKER_01:All right, if you put a hammock under one tree to get maximum shade and have something interesting to look up to, what tree would it be?
SPEAKER_00:It's kind of a loaded question. Um So I you know I'd have to answer that by saying there's a it's part of Indian Run Meadows Park. There's South Fork Indian Run. It was the old Halloran property, and uh a gentleman there planted a whole bunch of bald cypress along the creek back in the 60s, and now they're really huge. That would just be so awesome to look up all that because you you once you get under the shade of those trees along that creek, it's a whole other world with the knees coming up out of the water and everything. It's cool. Awesome. That is cool. All right, easiest tree to grow in Ohio. The easiest tree to grow in Ohio. Well, it's probably the one you don't want. Pear trees grow very well here. Um, but uh Freeman maples do really well. Uh tulip poplar and uh linden are really fast growers. They tend to uh uh adapt really well here.
SPEAKER_01:Some tree. What trees have a tougher time growing here?
SPEAKER_00:Um it really depends on how wet the soil is. Now, red oaks grow well here, but if it's really wet, they tend to struggle, have a tough time with uh alders. Like we've tried those before, but they just don't seem to want to take very well.
SPEAKER_04:All right, we mentioned you studied forestry at the Ohio State University. Uh you're a certified master of arborist. What age did you know you wanted to make a career out of this?
SPEAKER_00:I was in high school. Uh in my freshman year in high school, I took a natural resources class and you know, they did a whole tree ID thing, and I just really loved it. You know, they called me the teacher's pet, but I really I love the class. I he offered the teacher offered a bunch of overtime, a bunch of uh extra credit for everybody, and because everybody else was struggling, and I think I wound up getting out of that class like 131%. Oh wow.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I would love to be a certified master anything. But how does one become a certified arborist? What kind of training is involved?
SPEAKER_00:Uh so to become a certified arborist, you need to have at least three years of experience in in the field. Um, there's actually a form where you have that experience verified, or a combination of experience and education. So you could have an associate's degree in two years or like a bachelor's in one year. And the exam is a 200 question, multiple choice exam.
SPEAKER_01:Yikes.
SPEAKER_00:And it's across ten domains.
SPEAKER_01:I just started sweating. Sorry.
SPEAKER_04:Are you a dendrologist too? If not, explain the difference between a dendrologist and an arborist.
SPEAKER_00:So yes. And no. So urban forestry does involve dendrology. Okay. So dendrology is really the study of trees and the interactions with the environment, which urban forestry plays a part of that. And urban forestry is really a jack of all trades forestry, because you have to be a dendrologist, you've got to be an entomologist, you know, you've got to know, you've got to be a pathologist, you've got to know some of the diseases, how that how they interact in the tree, what they look like. So there it's kind of a broad spectrum.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Powell When people find out what you do, um, what type of advice do they start asking? I'm thinking about a doctor and people, you know, are asking about different ailments. Like what do people ask you about?
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell So it's funny. My my wife was looking over my shoulder last night when I was going over the the question just sent me, and she said, No, they don't ask you, they ask me for you. They they have me send you pictures. We we were uh going to uh we were switching our primary care physician, so I went with her to the appointment. And so he's talking to her, and everything was her appointment. And I was there and talking to her, and he turned to me and said, So, so what do you do for a living? So on the city forester for Dublin. Totally ignored her after that. He was just like, Oh, I have this tree in my front yard. But uh yeah, people always ask, Well, my tree's got these weird-looking leaves, and can I send you pictures?
SPEAKER_01:And then you have to tell them there's no hope.
SPEAKER_04:All right, lastly, give us your top three parks in Dublin with the best trees.
SPEAKER_00:Well, uh I mentioned it, the Indian Run Meadows Park, because of those bald cypress, I love them. Um, I'm I'm more of a tree nerd, so I kind of follow the trees versus just the parks. I I like like I said, I like that riverside corridor. I love the look of those sycamores, particularly in the winter, they really stand out with that white bark. And then uh Soyta Park again.
SPEAKER_04:All right, bonus question live Christmas tree, fake Christmas tree.
SPEAKER_02:Oh boy.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, that that that's a hard one because I I love the smell of live Christmas trees. I've never had one. I just for myself, I you know, growing trees and loving them, it would just it would bother me to cut one down for that purpose. Not that it's necessarily bad. There's a great industry in it. People make a living at it, they have a wonderful smell. If I were going to get one, it would have to be a Douglas fir because they have the best smell.
SPEAKER_04:All right, Jeff, thank you for that curveball question. And honestly, thanks for coming on today. And we are definitely smarter after this episode. Well, thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01:And to our listeners, thank you as well for taking the time to connect with your city. Tune in next time as we continue to explore the many personalities and experiences that make Dublin a thriving place to live, work, and grow.