Planting Woodies Under Power Lines

I just found a great resource that I wanted to share. The information was compiled by the University of Minnesota, Northern States Power Company and Minnesota Power, so it's geared more to the cold-weather states. It's called "The Right Tree Handbook."

http://www.mnpower.com/treebook/index.html

I forgot to say, I hope it helps others find "the right tree" for planting under or near power lines, which is a problem in my yard and in many other suburban and urban areas.

This message was edited Mar 10, 2007 5:53 PM

How incredibly needed! The power lines around here are a freakshow of disfigured trees. Ghastly. Thanks for posting the link.

Scott

I have them crossing my backyard, only the phone line, but it still would get in the way. If you click on the tree of interest, it brings up a "factsheet" with some really nice pictures and other information.

I have a power line that runs diagonally across my front yard. I have a pecan tree and an oak tree that is lopsided with half the trees missing. Burying the lines would cost a fortune and would require cutting roots of existing trees. By far, the most popular trees for planting near power lines here has been Taxodium and Lagerstroemia. I have also noticed the utility companies tend to leave pines alone, maybe it's because they quickly grow taller than the lines.

It's because they are dangerous to remove.

Here's the page that explains the color codes. I really like this resource!

http://www.mnpower.com/treebook/symbols.html

I should qualify the above statement with, "I think (that pines are left alone by the utility companies, because they are dangerous to remove)."

This message was edited Mar 12, 2007 12:11 PM

"Street Tree Fact Sheets" Gerhold, Lacasse & Wandell is available from Penn State for $20.00 (last time I ordered). Publications Office, 112 Agricultural Administration Bldg. University Park, PA 16802. Published with the assistance of the following state forestry agencies of: Conneticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachutes, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennyslvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, D.C, West Virginia and Wisconsin. ISBN# 1-883956-00-5
It is a top notch resource used by most municipal forestry/ tree departments or commissions. It concisely tells the good, the bad and the ugly for right-of-way planting with full color photography.

Thanks snapple! That looks like a really good reference.

How I found the other site was by sheer accident, I was looking up pictures of 'Red Jade' crabapple. It never occurred to me that anyone would plant something without looking up, but it happens.

Just yesterday we saw what appeared to be a spuce with the top of the tree missing, when we got closer, we noticed that it had been sheared off by the power line. Ugly.

Our power company here is First Energy. Those are the kind folks who "accidentally" blacked out the power for most of the eastern seabord, parts of the mid-west and Canada! They claim it was a tree limb hitting a power line. Actually I just think someone just tripped over an extension cord in Akron Ohio (where it began). As a result First Energy went on a three year tare through it's entire service area hacking off anything green under/over their power lines. Nothing was spared. Absolutely nothing. In some neighborhoods it was near devastation. They didn't prune. They flat topped to a level 10 ft below the lines.

I am chairman of the local tree commission. We have been selectively removing and replanting appropriate trees in right-of-ways throughout the municipality for ten yrs. Even with that ambitious program we still suffered. My phone rang off the hook for days. The utility company comes in with no advance warning. One day they just show up with chainsaws and chippers. That Blue Spruce that Grandma planted? Toast! They even removed arborvitae that were in no danger of ever getting up to the height of some high power tower transmission lines.

The worst thing they did was to cut back an oak actively infected with oak wilt. (The tree had just been identified as infected and was marked for removal.) Thus they spread the disease with their tools to every other oak they touched. I got a call from our police dept. that they had started pruning in that area but I was too late to get to the crew. I had to conatct our sate forester, who in turn got in touch with the tree company. They halted work for the day, supposedly to disenfect their tools. It remains to be seen just how much damage thay have done.

The moral of the story is plant smart. Get on your local tree commission.

Good advice.

"Directional Pruning" at its best. I wonder if powerlines were an afterthought.

Oh boy growin, that's a doosie! As citizens and local governments become more aware of the reprocussions of bad choices in right-of-way trees hopefully there will be less of this in the future.

Growin - Wowie! Maybe the service was added after the trees? Do you know the species of that planting? What a great illustration of the problem.

If those are pears they'd end up looking that way eventually anyways.

I think it's Hornbeam (Carpinus) and now that I look at it again, it's kinda odd they have so many sets of lines seperated on the pole. It's quite a few trees where they did this in a multi-block line. I just happened to notice this a few weeks ago and then this conversation showed up.

Wouldn't it have been cheaper to re-route the wires??

Resin

In our utility service area the cost is about $4,000 per pole to move lines. Going underground is more esthetically pleasing but it severely curtailes any planting where they are buried. Many new upscale housing developments have all utilities underground. Later the homeowner's association calls local government asking for right-of-way trees only to find out they don't have enough tree lawn (space between sidwalk and curb) to accomodate a decent root system for anything but the smallest of trees. When you add the underground clutter of water, sewer, telephone, cable and electric lines you have even fewer places to plant. It can be done but it takes careful preparation and planning. Then they want a "sweep" or "vista" of all the same species of tree. Can't do that. We plant no more than 25% of any one species in a given area. The thought is to reduce the exposure to losses due to a new pest or disease that might be species specific. An example of this is the devastation caused by the emerald ash borer. You spend as much time educating the public as you do in planting.