 the studio. I'm your host today, Alex Silva-Satter, and we are going to be talking about climate-ready landscapes. And with us today is the executive director of Tree Davis, who is a leading nonprofit here in Davis addressing climate issues. And her name is Erin Donnelly Marino. Welcome, Erin. Great to have you on the show today. Thanks so much for having me, Alex. So climate-ready landscapes, what can you tell us about what a climate-ready landscape is and what Tree Davis is doing? Absolutely. So as you're all well aware, Yolo County is a wonderful place for all of us to live, work, and play. But it's already very, very hot in the summertime, and climate projections indicate that our summers are going to be longer, our summers are going to be hotter, we're going to be experiencing longer and more intense droughts, as well as more intense storms in the wintertime. And so given that we have so many wonderful public spaces, parks and green belts, green spaces for all of our citizens to enjoy, we want to make sure that these landscapes that we value so very highly are ready to meet the climate conditions of the next 50 years and beyond. So again, our climate projections tell us that perhaps in the next decade, we might experience 100 more days per year over 95 degrees. That's a lot of heat. And trees are already very important to us in terms of mitigating the urban heat island effect in terms of shading our spaces and reducing our energy bills, keeping Yolo County a nice and livable place to call home. And these benefits are going to be even more important as we move into the coming decades and experience some of these climate impacts that I've described. So Tree Davis has an initiative that we're calling Community Canopy. This is a grant funded by Cal Fire and Proposition 68 to plant 1,000 trees across the city of Davis and also write a 40 year urban forest management plan. And in the implementation of this program, we are focusing on what we call climate ready tree species. And these are tree species that have been researched by US Forest Service researchers, as well as UC Davis researchers. And these folks have spent decades examining species that come from locations, particularly in the Southwest that may resemble the future climate conditions of Yolo County and trying to match tree physiological characteristics like heat tolerance, like tolerance for water stress, like tolerance for our local soil conditions that will be able to survive and thrive into the coming decades as we experience some of these climate impacts. So that's the idea behind climate ready trees. And we're also working very hard to think about these trees in the context of the landscape where they will be planted. So thinking about all of our public green space and doing some retrofits to incorporate green infrastructure, stormwater capture mechanisms, planting understory plants that much like the tree species I described, will be able to survive under the projected future climate conditions of our region and also confer habitat benefits and also provide a little bit more of a nature experience right in our urban landscape. So that's the idea behind climate ready trees and climate ready landscapes. Is there any, well I wouldn't say concern, but do they want to plant trees that maybe grow more quickly or is it more the other factors more important as far as you know the way they do the shade and they're ready for the next wave of type of climate? Because I know you know people are like oh we have to capture all this carbon and bring it down you know you would think oh let's get fast growing trees but maybe that's not an important factor. Good question. That's not the primary factor. As we think about the succession processes in our urban forest, which means moving from young trees to semi-mature trees to very mature trees, we really want to have a portfolio of species with different growing strategies and different kinds of tolerance so that if something happens in the way of a climate projection that isn't exactly what we thought it was going to be or a pest arrives or a disease arrives or something happens, we want to have enough diversity enough genetic diversity in our urban forest canopy so that all of our trees are not wiped out all at once. So some of the trees that we're looking at do have faster growth rates than others but that's also sort of looking at an intermediate approach of making sure that when our very mature urban canopy that we already have starts to senes, we're lucky that we already have a very mature urban forest canopy and when those trees start to die and when they reach the end of their natural lives, we want to be able to have intermediate mature trees to take their place and one of the ways of doing that is having one or a few of the species in our portfolio of species being a fast or growing type of species. Okay. Now you've already been doing this project for a while. It's a 40-year plan you're talking about doing with the city and you've already planted over 10,000 trees at least right out of and what is the overall goal again for the number? Yeah, thank you for highlighting Tree Davis's great achievements. We're very proud that over our 25 plus year history, we have planted close to 13,000 trees but that's since Tree Davis's inception back in 1992. On this particular grant that I've been talking about the community canopy grant, we're tasked with planting 1,000 trees by March of 2022. So in just under a year, we have, I believe we have about 400 trees left to plant on that particular grant to reach our 1,000 tree goal. Okay, and I did see on your website that people can apply and request to get a tree under this program. Yes, thank you for mentioning that. This is a free Tree Giveaway program. Anybody within Davis City Limits can request a tree and the website is showing up on your screen right now. You can go to our website treedavis.org and there's a form you can fill out on the website indicating that you would like to have a tree and I will send one of our certified arborists to your home to do a site evaluation and determine where you have space for a tree, what the surrounding landscape in your yard is like, and what species of tree would be the best fit for that particular location. And then there's the option of the homeowner assisting with the planting of the tree if they would like to or Tree Davis staff can take care of that step entirely as well. But we definitely want to sing this program from the rooftops. If you would like a tree, we have trees to give. And as I mentioned, you know, these provide benefits to individual homeowners, but collectively when we all have trees in our yards and in our green belts in our parks, this creates an overall canopy for our entire community that confers public health benefits, mental health benefits, ecosystem benefits, trees are just absolutely the best solution for so many things. So please contact us and request a tree today. All right. And now when we have some photographs of Tree Davis at work, correct, putting in some of these climate ready landscapes. So why don't we take a look at some of these photographs and you can tell us what we're looking at. Fantastic. This is a picture of my stellar staff. Our team is amazing. I'm so proud of the work our staff has done in the last year to pivot under COVID-19 conditions. You can see that everybody is masked up and more than six feet apart in this picture. This picture is of John Barravedo Park over in the east side of town. And this is a pretty special location. We have planted around 70 trees at this particular park. And it's a nice way to be able to look at the variety of species that we're planting. I believe every single species that we're offering through this program is represented at this park through this planting. And as you can see, my staff members are holding up this sign, acknowledging our wonderful funders and partners. Of course, first the city of Davis is our partner in all of this. And the funding comes directly from Cal Fire through Proposition 68. So thank you so much to our funders. And I encourage everybody to take a walk over at John Barravedo Park around the perimeter and see all of these brand new trees that are going to bring shade benefits to this park for many, many years to come. So I guess that's the first slide. And here we can see they're organizing the, I guess, where they're going to plant in this little grove here. Absolutely. This is the Tree Davis Memorial grove, which is over by White Sands Mini Park in West Davis. And it's also right next door to the university retirement community. And this is a place where we're really trying to highlight the implementation of our climate-ready landscape initiative that I described a little bit earlier. As you can see, this is sort of an open space that has been mulched. And there are small plants laid over top of that mulch. And what we're looking at here is a landscape in transition. Previously, this park space was covered with a shrub called pyrocantha. And though pyrocantha can potentially have some wildlife benefits, it's basically not a good particular use for this public space. So it's a lesser-valued plant. And we removed all that pyrocantha. We mulched it up, spread the mulch. And now what we're doing in this picture is our board member Emily Griswold, who is also with the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. Emily is leading our staff in the planting of many drought tolerant and native understory species in this area. So this is converting a space to be able to think about plants that are going to be able to tolerate the future climate conditions, as I mentioned, and also provide just more value for that public space, both in terms of human enjoyment, in terms of wildlife benefit, in terms of pollinator habitat. These plants are going to confer much more value than the previous shrubs that were there. And this is one of my wonderful staff members. This is John Carson wearing his I Heart Trees shirt in the Memorial Grove. And this is, you know, when I see this picture, what I think of is forest bathing. And this is a new fad that's catching on all around the world where folks are encouraged to spend time in natural spaces in order to boost their mental health and their overall wellness. And this too is at the Memorial Grove. I encourage everybody, go take a walk on your green belts in your public spaces and practice a little bit of forest bathing. Soak up the wonderful value of these public spaces that we have in Yolo County. This is another board member pictured here. Larry Gunther is carrying a shovel because he just finished planting an Atlas cedar, which is pictured in the background of this picture. One big thing that we have going at the Tree Davis Memorial Grove is something that we call a Tree Tribute Program. And this is a program in which folks can basically sponsor a tree to be planted in the Memorial Grove, either in honor of someone living or in memory of someone who has passed. And so these testimonial trees, these tribute trees are planted throughout the Memorial Grove. And what's pictured here is a central sculpture in our Grove where plaques are mounted with an inscription of the donor's choice. And it's a really wonderful place to spend some time to honor the memory of your loved ones, to honor your living loved ones that you have donated in honor of, and just really enjoy a reflective space. At the Grove, this is where you're going to hold your Memorial event, or not a Memorial, but a celebration on May 1st, right? You're honoring Lois Wolk. That's right. Our wonderful community member, Lois Wolk, former California State Senator, former Davis Mayor, Tree Davis founding member who has done so much for our community, so much for our state, and so much for the environment overall. We're going to be hosting an event, as you mentioned, in our Memorial Grove on May 1st to honor Lois's contributions. And that will be an opportunity for all of the event participants to also see our Climate Ready Landscape Initiative pilot project in action. So that's pretty exciting for us. We're looking forward to it. And Tree Davis, of course, for anyone who would like to find out more, treedavis.org is the website. There are numerous other programs we don't even have time to get into today, including one called the Davis Great Tree Search. So if you're curious as to what that's about, you can go check it out on their website. I think that's all we have time for. Is there anything else you'd like to mention, Erin, before we wrap it up? I just want to thank everyone in our community that has been supporting Tree Davis over the last year. This has been a tough year for all businesses and nonprofits and folks all around the world and in Yolo County due to COVID. And our donors have been very generous in supporting us. Volunteers have continued to help us here and there. And I just want to express my gratitude to the community. Thank you so much. All right. Well, thank you for coming today and sharing about what Tree Davis is up to. And for everyone, what Tree Davis is doing is making sure that it's not just about the tree. There's a whole ecology around the tree. And that's what the Climate Ready Landscapes project is trying to educate everyone about. That you need to think about more than just, yeah, let's throw in some fast growing tree and take down some carbon. There's a lot of other factors. And they're offering all this information and free trees and free advice and analysis of your plot of land and everything. So take advantage of that and check out Tree Davis. Thank you very much. And that's all we have time for today on In the Studio. But we'll be back again. So keep an eye out on the schedule for us. It's been a pleasure, Alex. Thank you so much. Thank you.