Soil Compaction & What It Means for Urban Trees

There are many aspects that need to be taken account of when planting trees in urban areas – one essential factor being soil compaction. It is important to determine site environment and soil conditions in order to mitigate the constraints of compacted soil and create healthy tree planting conditions. In previous blog posts, we have detailed the soil requirements of […]

Making a Big Difference to Global Warming

Urbanized areas may only occupy around 2% of the world’s habitable land, but they are the biggest drivers of global climate change. Referred to as “urban heat islands”, cities are usually hotter than rural areas for numerous reasons. Traffic pollution creates a greenhouse effect that traps heat at night. While the cutting down of local trees means the lose of […]

Soil Requirements of Healthy Urban Trees

Trees require adequate supply of uncompacted, well aerated, and moist soil in order to thrive. These conditions enable tree roots to obtain all the essential elements they require for healthy growth – nutrients, oxygen, and water. These soil circumstances however, are often unavailable in built urban areas. In this article, we provide a soil quality definition […]

StrataCell Installation

The Canary Wharf Crossrail Station in London, England is set to be the size of One Canada Square (a 50 story skyscraper in London) laid on its side. GreenBlue is proud to announce the completion of this exciting development by our UK team. View a fast-forward video of the construction here. StrataCells® are soil support modules that […]

11 Tree Experts & Organizations You Should Know About

Local tree experts and organizations can be a valuable resource not only to landscape architects and contractors working on landscape infrastructure projects, but also to local residents. Tree professionals are likely to know about your local tree ordinances and other ways to protect and increase urban tree populations.  Below is a list of the types of […]

Specifying Tree Guards & Tree Grates: What You Need to Know

Tree guards and grates have an important role to play in maintaining healthy tree pit conditions. They can also be as aesthetically pleasing as they are functional, and offer a high quality visual design statement to any public realm or streetscape theme. For over 20 years, GreenBlue has been developing innovative products to assist trees below ground […]

Pitfalls & Challenges in Urban Tree Planting

We all know the importance of trees in our cities, however urban trees are often neglected and do not receive the appropriate care they require in urban settings. Each of these photos tell a story of neglect, disregard, or simple lack of knowledge. Learning from both our own and others’ mistakes is imperative if we are to pursue […]

Identifying Urban Tree Planting Opportunities

Clearly, we cannot just simply drop trees in anywhere. To have a chance of success, tree species and location are the first priority in our goal of establishing trees in cities. Planting potentially large trees in wrong locations is counterproductive and will simply turn people against trees. However, equally often we see tree planting sites which could […]

A City’s “Twelve Days of Christmas”

Because it’s that time of year, we felt that it was an opportunity to relay the gifts that our cities greatly deserve. So we created a poem of the endowment we hope cities around the world will be in receipt of during the coming year.