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Old 07-01-2012, 08:22 PM
 
Location: Houston Inner Loop
659 posts, read 1,370,453 times
Reputation: 758

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nairobi View Post
No, Matt. After being a Houston area native for decades, I haven't the slightest clue where Lake Jackson is.

I never said those pictures were Houston proper. What I said is that those were terrible examples of what you would call a forested area. You can't show them and then turn and call the Dallas area barren or parched.

Lake Jackson does have a nice amount of trees, but, again, your examples sucked.
Lake Jackson is a Tree City USA, though.

 
Old 07-01-2012, 10:51 PM
 
563 posts, read 906,191 times
Reputation: 674
The Texas Forest Service estimated there are 663 million trees in the Houston metro area. There is 67 different species of trees with a density of 87,000 per sqm. The urban land cover in Houston has an estimated 86 million trees.

I couldn't find numbers for DFW but the city of Dallas has an estimated 6 million trees with 48 different types of trees. What's funny is the guy that did the estimate was surprised there were that many. I also found out the Dallas planted 6,000 trees right before the Super Bowl.

Every Tree Counts In Dallas « CBS Dallas / Fort Worth

The replacement cost for Houston's trees is over $200 billion and they provided $456 million in environmental benefits as well as trap $721 million worth of carbon.

Last edited by MobileDave; 07-01-2012 at 11:01 PM..
 
Old 07-01-2012, 11:15 PM
 
2,085 posts, read 2,126,699 times
Reputation: 3498
It doesnt even take an expose for me to know that Houston is far more lush than Dallas, with more trees. Even into the southern reaches of the city of Houston its more forested. One can find tall, lush, stately looking trees as far south as Bellaire,

Whats interesting is that if you surveyed the size of trees in DFW, I suspect you'd find, that of those 6 million, a goodly portion would be little spindly trees that provide small, low looming canopies with little accompanying foliage, undergrowth or vines. Nevertheless, DFW has them, so thats a notch in its belt, so to speak.

Trees and foliage in general, while downplayed, actually do matter. They symbolize a fertile region with a hospitable climate for life. Its the reason the west in general was so sparsely populated initially, until water transport, became more advanced and practical. Trees might not be front page news, but Ill take a rainforest over a desert any day.
 
Old 07-01-2012, 11:30 PM
 
Location: Upper East Side of Texas
12,498 posts, read 26,867,254 times
Reputation: 4890
Quote:
Originally Posted by soletaire View Post
It doesnt even take an expose for me to know that Houston is far more lush than Dallas, with more trees. Even into the southern reaches of the city of Houston its more forested. One can find tall, lush, stately looking trees as far south as Bellaire,

Whats interesting is that if you surveyed the size of trees in DFW, I suspect you'd find, that of those 6 million, a goodly portion would be little spindly trees that provide small, low looming canopies with little accompanying foliage, undergrowth or vines. Nevertheless, DFW has them, so thats a notch in its belt, so to speak.

Trees and foliage in general, while downplayed, actually do matter. They symbolize a fertile region with a hospitable climate for life. Its the reason the west in general was so sparsely populated initially, until water transport, became more advanced and practical. Trees might not be front page news, but Ill take a rainforest over a desert any day.
I would say I-10 is the dividing line of where Houston's vegetation starts becoming gradually less dense. North of I-10 is very lush & green. Even the inner loop is full of greenery.

Once you are south of 610 its coastal plains from then on till you hit Lake Jackson then its hardwoods for a bit then coastline once you hit Freeport.
 
Old 07-01-2012, 11:35 PM
 
392 posts, read 630,436 times
Reputation: 258
Quote:
Originally Posted by soletaire View Post
It doesnt even take an expose for me to know that Houston is far more lush than Dallas, with more trees. Even into the southern reaches of the city of Houston its more forested. One can find tall, lush, stately looking trees as far south as Bellaire,

Whats interesting is that if you surveyed the size of trees in DFW, I suspect you'd find, that of those 6 million, a goodly portion would be little spindly trees that provide small, low looming canopies with little accompanying foliage, undergrowth or vines. Nevertheless, DFW has them, so thats a notch in its belt, so to speak.

Trees and foliage in general, while downplayed, actually do matter. They symbolize a fertile region with a hospitable climate for life. Its the reason the west in general was so sparsely populated initially, until water transport, became more advanced and practical. Trees might not be front page news, but Ill take a rainforest over a desert any day.
There are several comments to make here.

First, once an area has enough trees, are any more necessary? If 1/3 of. DFW is forested, the rest farmland, what is the practical advantage to having, say, one million more trees? How do the farmers benefit?

No, the forest cover in North Texas is very thick, lush and hard to penetrate, more like jungle. The trees are pretty high off the ground. The Cross Timbers forest belt in North Texas was named as it was because you couldn't ride a horse through the lush undergrowth. Very good for the Caddo people.

No, the presence of trees do not indicate a fertile area. In Europe,the ground is very fertile, but very little forest cover, mostly open farmland. There is a higher percentage of forested land in North Texas than, say, Germany.

When you examine an actual jungle, say the Brazilian rain forest, you find that almost all the nutrients are in the forest cover, not the ground. When the Brazilians clear cut their jungles, the land reverts to desert. Pine forests, such as those in East Texas, are notorious for their lack of fertility, compared to the dark soils of north Texas.

I might guess that the Houston area trees have survived because the land is too poor to make good farmland. Otherwise, Houston would have the cleared land and the agricultural productivity of North Texas.

North Texas is not a desert, in fact, it's pretty wet, full of farm acreage, and is not artificially irrigated.

Could it be that Houston can't think of anything better to brag about, so they grasp at the trivial? What's next? Bragging about the number of letters in Houston's name? Ya ya ya, Houston has 7 letters in its name, and Dallas only has six... Poor little weenie...

Last edited by savanite; 07-01-2012 at 11:51 PM..
 
Old 07-01-2012, 11:44 PM
 
Location: Upper East Side of Texas
12,498 posts, read 26,867,254 times
Reputation: 4890
Quote:
Originally Posted by savanite View Post
There are several comments to make here.

First, once an area has enough trees, are any more necessary? If 1/3 of. DFW is forested, the rest farmland, what is the practical advantage to having, say, one million more trees? How do the farmers benefit?

No, the forest cover in North Texas is very thick, lush and hard to penetrate, more like jungle. The trees are pretty high off the ground. The Cross Timbers forest belt in North Texas was named as it was because you couldn't ride a horse through the lush undergrowth. Very good for the Caddo people.

No, the presence of trees do not indicate a fertile area. In Europe,the ground is very fertile, but very little forest cover, mostly open farmland. There is a higher percentage of forested land in North Texas than, say, Germany.

When you examine an actual jungle, say the Brazilian rain forest, you find that almost all the nutrients are in the forest cover, not the ground. When the Brazilians clear cut their jungles, the land reverts to desert. Pine forests, such as those in East Texas, are notorious for their lack of fertility, compared to the dark soils of north Texas.

North Texas is not a desert, in fact, it's pretty wet, full of farm acreage, and is not artificially irrigated.

Could it be that Houston can't think of anything better to brag about, so they grasp at the trivial?
I have a friend from OC. They said when they flew into D/FW for the first time the landscape looked very barren & boring saying it looked like there was open farm land everywhere with very few trees.
 
Old 07-02-2012, 12:10 AM
JJG
 
Location: Fort Worth
13,612 posts, read 22,794,779 times
Reputation: 7638
Quote:
Originally Posted by Metro Matt View Post
I have a friend from OC. They said when they flew into D/FW for the first time the landscape looked very barren & boring saying it looked like there was open farm land everywhere with very few trees.
Of course.

When you grew up with mountains on one side and an ocean on the other, you will think anything looks boring.
 
Old 07-02-2012, 12:16 AM
 
2,085 posts, read 2,126,699 times
Reputation: 3498
Quote:
Originally Posted by savanite View Post
No, the presence of trees do not indicate a fertile area. In Europe,the ground is very fertile, but very little forest cover, mostly open farmland. There is a higher percentage of forested land in North Texas than, say, Germany.
No, that is exactly what trees, & foliage, (notice, I didnt just say trees) indicate. Trees, access to water and fertile ground are all people used to seek when scouting new territory. As another poster implied, there is no valid geographical reason for a city like DFW to exist. When you talk about great world cities, they are typically going to be located along some body of water or close to it.

Quote:
When you examine an actual jungle, say the Brazilian rain forest, you find that almost all the nutrients are in the forest cover, not the ground. When the Brazilians clear cut their jungles, the land reverts to desert. Pine forests, such as those in East Texas, are notorious for their lack of fertility, compared to the dark soils of north Texas.

Could it be that Houston can't think of anything better to brag about, so they grasp at the trivial? What's next? Bragging about the number of letters in Houston's name? Ya ya ya, Houston has 7 letters in its name, and Dallas only has six... Poor little weenie...
I dont know about all that other stuff, but this is simply untrue. The soil in East Texas and points east are extremely fertile. In fact the reason that there is clay in more Eastern-lying areas is because they were so fertile that the top soil was actually over farmed. The utisols are a result of OVER farming and poor crop rotation, whereby the topsoils were plowed and used for harvesting so extensively that it eventually completely wore away, leaving only a permanent layer of subsoil, which are the clay type utisoils seen in more eastern areas.. Pine forests in East Texas arent conducive to farming, NOT because of a lack of soil nutrients, or because of its soil type, but because pine trees are a highly competitive species of tree. In addition to blocking sunlight from competing seedlings, their fallen needles stymie undergrowth of other plants to preserve more nutrients for themselves. Its a mechanism to limit competition from other plants. Not because its soil type is infertile. Tyler is considered the rose capital of the country, but before that, and before Georgia inherited the title after an insect driven blight killed the industry in Tyler, Tyler was known as the original peach capital. One of the reasons that the peach industry became such a boom there, was because the original settlers to the area from Georgia, found the soil in Tyler to be very analogous, to that fertile soil in Georgia. East Texas has always been highly agrarian. Its lumber/logging industry, was at one point one of the top producers of lumber in the nation, and it STILL has more trees than North Texas even AFTER the Bonanza Era.


Im not saying trees are everything, but calling trees trivial, in the grand scheme of things, is like calling water worthless just because we can turn on a faucet -- this, despite the fact that we all witnessed the whole state fly into a complete panic and become set ablaze last year by drought and wildfires in the absence of it.

Last edited by soletaire; 07-02-2012 at 12:35 AM..
 
Old 07-02-2012, 12:22 AM
 
Location: The Magnolia City
8,928 posts, read 14,258,900 times
Reputation: 4853
I've never seen any part of DFW that could be described as looking like a jungle. That description, however, would be very appropriate to describe much of northern Houston.

This just does so much for me, and Dallas doesn't really come close.
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Houst...bp=12,180,,0,0

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Houst...bp=12,225,,0,0

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Houst...12,180.86,,0,0

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Houst...p=12,0.86,,0,0

Our trees are just one of the many things that makes Houston unique in the state of Texas.
 
Old 07-02-2012, 12:33 AM
 
2,085 posts, read 2,126,699 times
Reputation: 3498
Quote:
Originally Posted by Metro Matt View Post
I would say I-10 is the dividing line of where Houston's vegetation starts becoming gradually less dense. North of I-10 is very lush & green. Even the inner loop is full of greenery.

Once you are south of 610 its coastal plains from then on till you hit Lake Jackson then its hardwoods for a bit then coastline once you hit Freeport.
Its interesting to me, I see a veritable jungle far south of I-10...Driving along San Felipe one would get the impression that they are in the middle of a jungle, with trees towering in every direction, it isnt until you actually get to Westheimer that I begin to see a sincere thinning of tree coverage. But even then, trees arent hard to find at all. That area is far more commercially developed, so of course it wont have huge plots of treed areas, but they are there, and its still quite green in general.
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