Buscaino is executive director for the nonprofit Casey Trees, which has been bolstering D.C.’s tree canopy since 2001.
You all are going to be planting a lot of trees this fall. Why now?
We do it now because there are two planting seasons — one is in the spring and one is in the fall. … We plant anywhere between 300 and 400 trees per event.
What kinds of trees are you going to be planting?
We’re planting all different kinds from the larger type… oaks, maples, elms, and sweet gums and that type of thing. We also plant midsize trees … as well as occasionally some small ones like the redbuds, amelanchiers, and crepe myrtles and stuff like that. So flowering trees, large statue trees, medium trees — we plant the gamut.
Why do you plant so many elms?
We have an elm replacement planting program that we have been doing. We plant anywhere between 100 and 200 trees each year, actually up to 250 on the streetsides. The District was once known for its elm corridors. And a lot of those elm corridors died during the Dutch Elm epidemic of the ’60s and ’70s. … What we’re doing now is going back to those old historical corridors and we’re replanting all those up. It’s a great thing to watch those trees, which grow like weeds, by the way. We plant them at about one to two inches in diameter at their base, and in three or four years, they’re enormous.
Why is planting trees important?
Gosh, you pick your reasons: energy savings, carbon sequestration, neighborhood greening and beauty and cooling. Everybody knows what it’s like to be out on a nice, hot day in August around here: It’s kind of like soup. And you take a thermometer … sit on the middle of the street or on a concrete pad and then go under a tree you’ll see some significant temperature declines. I’ve seen 15 to 20 degrees. It’s significant.
– Kytja Weir
