• Time Frame
  • Training - 8 hours, minimum
  • Inventory - 15-20 trees/hour
• Cost - less than $500.00 includes volunteer expenses (meals, refreshments) and equipment use fee.
• Benefits - useful for communities with fewer than 1000 street trees and with limited variety of tree species. Volunteers may also be useful to larger communities updating existing inventories.

What we are offering

• To work with your community to set up the management planning process.
• Provide training resources needed to organize the completion of an inventory of all the street trees within your municipal boundaries using local volunteers.
• To provide you with a list of appropriate species for new planting.
• To help you formulate a management plan for your community.

What you will need to provide

• Someone will need to be designated as the project leader during this process.
• There needs to be a municipal staff person assigned to keep and update the electronic database that will be provided.
• Signoff from a public official supporting the project. This would most likely include the Mayor and the person in charge of street tree care, planting and removal.
• The computer software necessary would be Access or Excel.
• You will need good street maps with addresses to work from.
• After the data is collected and summarized, attend a one-day workshop to walk through the process of creating a planning document.

How much this will cost

Cost for volunteers may include meal,travel and tool expenses (see below). Also, the Community Forestry committee maintains a supply of handheld computers. An equipment use fee of $10/week/device will be charged to maintain and update the required hardware and software. Your community may wish to purchase their own equipment (or at least one to maintain the database). The cost of a handheld computer (under $200 - Palm Pilot, Sony Clie'), and Software (Pendragon Forms - about $250) may add additional expenses.

Crew tools (items to be carried by each two person crew)

• PDA (handheld computer)
• Diameter tape (converts circumference to diameter)
• 50' tape measure
• Compass
• Clipboard
• Tree identification guide
• Map of municipality with right-of-way indicated for each street
• Marker to "scratch-off" completed streets
• Notepad and pen for comments or residents questions
• Orange safety vest for each crew member

If interested in this street tree inventory method, fill out the downloadable Tree Inventory Project Application (.pdf | .html)

For tips on preparing volunteers to take the inventory go to Training Procedure.

For documents to help gain support for this project from public officials and for tools to train volunteers go to PR Documents and Training Downloads