Phoenix to Houston?

[groovamos]

Originally Posted by War Beagle

Your mistake is you are comparing Houston to other TX cities. Yeah there's trees in Houston, they just took 20 years to grow in. I don't know why, but Texans hate trees more than any other place I have lived.

What a crock. Why do we have so many non-native palm varieties growing all over the place? Why is it I never heard of "Trees for Atlanta" or "Trees for Miami". You can't answer my point about the inner loop plantings on the freeways I noticed. When I have out of town guests I drive them all over the place to see the majestic live oaks we have all over. I bet you can't even tell us where the largest live oak in Houston is located.

Originally Posted by War Beagle

In other places, residential developments are designed to retain as many original trees as possible. In places like GA, TN or VA, you often can't even see the subdivision from the main road because they leave forested buffers so it gives the impression that you are driving through the country even when you're in a city. The Woodlands does this (Kingwood too) and I think that's one of the reasons it's so popular. Memorial and the other villages do this to some degree too.

But how are most neighborhoods in Houston and Texas built? They literally bulldoze all or almost all of the natural vegetation and then plant crappy little saplings. It's the dumbest thing I've ever seen as far as neighborhood design. In 20 years there will be lots of nice trees, but by that time it's a crapshoot as to whether the neighborhood has turned into a ghetto or not.

Just determined to be negative, quite noticeable especially with the Houston as Ghetto remark. I live in Timbergrove packed with pine and oaks and named for it and they left as many trees as possible when building it in 1953. My lot has 12 mature pin oaks and post oaks on a small lot of 9800 sf and a 2150 ranch house. Memorial, River Oaks, Tanglewood are packed with trees. All of North Houston and Harris county, the same. Why in hell do you have a suburb called the Woodlands? Why districts of Oak Forest? River Oaks, Garden Oaks, Afton Oaks? You think people had to fantasize trees for these names? I have an investment property in The Oaks of Green Trails off Fry Rd south, a subdivision named for all the oaks in the whole area. Not only the original oaks are there but the medians and borders of those roads were planted with oaks decades ago and look great now. Go drive around Southhampton, the Museum District, all those areas south of 59 in that part of town. The boulevards are lined with oaks. When one of them dies it is immediately replace by the city or Trees For Houston.

You're just maintaining your thesis, your negativity at all costs. You didn't answer my point about the extensive inner loop plantings on the freeways.

[Relocation9]

Sigh...I do think Phoenix is better than Houston. Less traffic, so many places to take short trips to...hiking, skiing at Flagstaff. House prices are less. Weather balances out.
I know the OP said no schools, but even the school systems are good with Basis schools, several gifted academies etc. My sister's DS goes to a gifted academy there and honestly it seems they do better work than what my child does in one of the best private schools in Houston

[Texyn]

Originally Posted by groovamos

What a crock. Why do we have so many non-native palm varieties growing all over the place? Why is it I never heard of "Trees for Atlanta" or "Trees for Miami". You can't answer my point about the inner loop plantings on the freeways I noticed. When I have out of town guests I drive them all over the place to see the majestic live oaks we have all over. I bet you can't even tell us where the largest live oak in Houston is located.

Overall, Houston has indeed done a great job planting trees across its freeways, and the live oaks (which naturally grow in the area along/South of I-10) are quite majestic. Many people mention lack of trees in areas of the city, but that is a factor of the lay of land resulting from car-oriented sprawl, combined with over-the-top development patterns (i.e. visual clutter from feeder roads), which take away the focus on the landscape.

Thus, it ends up that how vegetation is planted matters more in what people see, than just planting in and of itself. That is, with the amount of concrete urban sprawl involves, traditional tree planting won't be enough to cut it; you have to go above and beyond, to the point that people take notice. Cover larger sections of parking lots/roadways with trees or vegetation, blanketing them if needed (like that buried section of 59 in the Montrose area).

As for the other cities:

- There is a similar program for Atlanta, just without the "for:"
https://treesatlanta.org/

- I can't find a similar program for Miami, although that city does have its tree conservation programs:
Million Trees Miami - Miami-Dade County

- Houston has a more ideal climate for tree/vegetative growth than Atlanta (i.e. higher annual precipitation in all seasons, longer growing season, etc); however, Atlanta happens to have more permissive soils for forest cover compared to Houston.

- Miami has the best tree growing climate of all these cities (highest annual precipitation, very wet summers, warm year-round, etc), but also the least ideal soil (very sandy, with areas of alkaline coral/limestone). So tree growing presentation relative to climate is suppressed even more than in Houston.

Originally Posted by groovamos

Just determined to be negative, quite noticeable especially with the Houston as Ghetto remark. I live in Timbergrove packed with pine and oaks and named for it and they left as many trees as possible when building it in 1953. My lot has 12 mature pin oaks and post oaks on a small lot of 9800 sf and a 2150 ranch house. Memorial, River Oaks, Tanglewood are packed with trees. All of North Houston and Harris county, the same. Why in hell do you have a suburb called the Woodlands? Why districts of Oak Forest? River Oaks, Garden Oaks, Afton Oaks? You think people had to fantasize trees for these names? I have an investment property in The Oaks of Green Trails off Fry Rd south, a subdivision named for all the oaks in the whole area. Not only the original oaks are there but the medians and borders of those roads were planted with oaks decades ago and look great now. Go drive around Southhampton, the Museum District, all those areas south of 59 in that part of town. The boulevards are lined with oaks. When one of them dies it is immediately replace by the city or Trees For Houston.

You're just maintaining your thesis, your negativity at all costs. You didn't answer my point about the extensive inner loop plantings on the freeways.

The poster seemed to be referring more to the outer suburbs in the Houston area, rather than the old inner city neighborhoods. But even on that front, it is still being laid out quite thick; pretty much all neighborhoods across the Houston area, north or south, east or west, do their best to maintain the tree coverage present The degree varies, depending on the developer, and the aesthetic people have in mind, but even the most cleared out subdivisions always take care to dedicate, at least, a portion of the area to the wilderness.

[War Beagle]

Originally Posted by groovamos

What a crock. Why do we have so many non-native palm varieties growing all over the place? Why is it I never heard of "Trees for Atlanta" or "Trees for Miami". You can't answer my point about the inner loop plantings on the freeways I noticed. When I have out of town guests I drive them all over the place to see the majestic live oaks we have all over. I bet you can't even tell us where the largest live oak in Houston is located.


Just determined to be negative, quite noticeable especially with the Houston as Ghetto remark. I live in Timbergrove packed with pine and oaks and named for it and they left as many trees as possible when building it in 1953. My lot has 12 mature pin oaks and post oaks on a small lot of 9800 sf and a 2150 ranch house. Memorial, River Oaks, Tanglewood are packed with trees. All of North Houston and Harris county, the same. Why in hell do you have a suburb called the Woodlands? Why districts of Oak Forest? River Oaks, Garden Oaks, Afton Oaks? You think people had to fantasize trees for these names? I have an investment property in The Oaks of Green Trails off Fry Rd south, a subdivision named for all the oaks in the whole area. Not only the original oaks are there but the medians and borders of those roads were planted with oaks decades ago and look great now. Go drive around Southhampton, the Museum District, all those areas south of 59 in that part of town. The boulevards are lined with oaks. When one of them dies it is immediately replace by the city or Trees For Houston.

You're just maintaining your thesis, your negativity at all costs. You didn't answer my point about the extensive inner loop plantings on the freeways.

Like you said, it takes decades for the plantings to look good. Same with the loop plantings youre obsessed with. I pointed out there are some locations that have kept native trees. But this isn't the norm as it is cheaper to bulldoze then plant saplings.

You can be a good homer and white knight for Houston. I'll continue to share my view based on my experiences here and in several other states. Usually when people ask for opinions they want a range of viewpoints.

[Texyn]

Originally Posted by War Beagle

Like you said, it takes decades for the plantings to look good. Same with the loop plantings youre obsessed with. I pointed out there are some locations that have kept native trees. But this isn't the norm as it is cheaper to bulldoze then plant saplings.

Something about this; I've noticed that Houston gardens tend not to make use of robust-growing subtropic plant species, such as bamboo. Those types of plants grow very fast (over 2ft per day), and, in conjunction with fast growing trees/shrubs, can make gardens look "grown" for the time being, while the shade trees take their time to mature and grow.

People who move to many southerly areas of Houston who want to garden will find that the soil is an expansive clay which, while mineral rich, can be mechanically troublesome for tree growth; it has lower pH than many clay-based soils, thanks to the wet climate, but still quite higher than desired for flora like pine trees or azaleas. The soil is the only reason why the pines of The Woodlands aren't covering the entire metro landscape right now. New Orleans south of Lake Pontchartrain, along with areas of South Florida, are in the same situation as southern Houston, regarding soil alkalinity in such a wet climate.

So, you are right in one sense: developers in Houston should take quality > quantity. To deal with the soil, either organic compost has to be applied gradually over 3-year regimen, or quick results can be induced via aluminum sulfate or sulfur; if such a task (or at least the hard work of it) is left to a department in the developer field (rather than the homeowner), then it will give incoming residents a high quality area to work with, in terms of gardening. While the development time of the community is increased, the resulting area, at least, has better quality, and the rapid development of the land gets "checked."

[grmi66]

Well the point is moot at this time. Thanks for all of the replies. My wife interviewed for promotions in 5 different cities and ended up getting a promotion that keeps us in Phoenix of all places. Her employer got the budget to create two new positions and needed to fill them fast. So she only needs to worry about moving up a few flights of stairs to her new office. We were scrambling to find out as much as possible about 5 different cities to move to sight unseen.