As vice president and co-owner of Landscape Design of Goldsboro, as well as sister company Jericho Farms, Danny VanDevender has been growing and planting trees for the past 42 years in Pikeville, NC. Danny has been involved with the NC Urban Forest Council for the past seven years, either on the Board or as a vendor at the conference and various NCUFC workshops. What Danny has enjoyed most about his time in the NCUFC has been interaction with other tree growers and installers "as we all try to figure out the right things to do for the health of a tree".

"My tip (for others in the industry) would be that this relationship between trees and people will only become more important," advises Danny. "A young person looking for a career or someone looking for a second career would be well advised to look at employment opportunities within this industry," he adds. As for a favorite tree, Danny likes any species that is designed correctly, planted correctly, and maintained maintained correctly. You can get in touch with Danny VanDevender at Landscape Design of Goldsboro through their website https://www.ldigoldsboro.com/contact

The NC Forest Service’s Urban & Community Forestry Program (U&CF) has recently been awarded special funding through the US Forest Service Southern Region to assist communities with recovery of urban canopy trees damaged during Hurricane Florence in 2018. The NC Urban Forest Council will partner with the NCFS U&CF Program to develop outreach materials, training opportunities, and guidance that will help arborists, local governments, and homeowners be better prepared for storm events.

A portion of the funding will be used to develop publications and Public Service Announcements to help homeowners prepare their yards and associated trees for storms, and deal with a damaged tree following a storm. A critical message we hope to relay to homeowners is that trees provide important benefits in the urban landscape and fear should not be a reason to remove trees entirely from around our homes. The outreach will also address safety and liability issues related to hiring ‘Joe with a chainsaw’ for debris clean-up after a storm event, supporting ISA’s efforts to encourage professionalism within the tree care industry.

Additionally, funding will be directed towards training, including workshops and webinars for local governments and arborists. Using the “Community Forest Storm Mitigation Planning Workbook”, we plan to work with NC communities to guide them through the process of developing a storm mitigation plan for their urban forest. Training efforts will familiarize municipal and private arborists in the Urban Forest Strike Team (UFST) concept. If you are not familiar with the UFST, its mission is to provide tree damage and risk assessments and Federal Emergency Management Agency public assistance information to a community or region whose urban forest has been impacted by a natural disaster. We plan to offer training for municipal and private arborists on UFST concepts and practices to increase the local resources available following a storm event.

A final portion of the funds will be passed through directly to NC local governments to assist with recovery efforts, possibly involving tree damage assessments, management plan development, and partial and full tree inventories in communities most impacted by the 2018 hurricane. Post storm aerial surveys indicate damage to forest in 12 counties along the NC coast. There are 85 municipalities in this impact area, with an estimated 838,000 total trees and 83,800 trees on public properties. Of the 85 municipalities, 83 do not have urban forest management expertise on staff. It is estimated that 35% of urban trees suffered some degree of crown damage or were lost across the 12 counties surveyed. Some counties near or on the coast suffered damage rates as high 69%, and some communities are reporting losses in the hundreds of trees. We are excited to begin this initiative over the next 18 months and working with the NCFS and our coastal communities. 

If you would like to learn more about the program at ACC, you can email Liz Riley at Elizabeth.Riley@alamancecc.edu 

Carolina Canopy #7: The Landscape Below - Encouraging Trees to be on Their Best Behavior

Source: NC Forest Service Forest Health Notes, Vol. 202001-ALB

The Asian longhorned beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis) is currently not known to exist in North Carolina. This non-native invasive pest is native to China and Korea and was first found in the U.S. in Brooklyn, New York in 1996. Since then, it has been detected in other areas of New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and, in June 2020, South Carolina. In the U.S., it is known to attack 29 species of hardwood trees. It prefers maple and boxelder (Acer), but other known hosts include birch (Betula), willow (Salix), elm (Ulmus), horsechestnut and buckeye (Aesculus), mimosa (Albizia), ash (Fraxinus), and poplar (Populus).

Adults of the Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) are about ¾ to 1 ½ inches in length (excluding antennae). They are glossy black with irregular white spots on the wing covers. Antennae are as long or longer than the body with segments that alternate between white and black in color. Adults are present from June to October in the Northeast, but its life cycle in the South is unknown.

When emerging adults tunnel out of the tree, they leave perfectly round exit holes 3/8 to 5/8 inch in diameter. Egg niches on the bark of trees and frass from larval feeding can extend from egg sites or cracks in the bark. Often, frass will collect in branch crotches or at the base of the tree. Foamy sap may also be present around the egg-laying pits, which can attract bees, ants, and wasps. Adult Asian longhorned beetles feed on leaves and bark of young twigs after emerging from the tree. They create jagged edges along leaf tissue, and they strip away outer tissue from twigs. Other signs and symptoms include early fall coloration or drooping leaves, calluses or areas of missing bark, breakage of limbs or crown, cracks in bark, branch dieback, and exposed feeding galleries.

For more information on how to detect and eliminate ALB, visit the link for the NCDA&CS Pest Alert HERE...