Monday, January 6, 2014

Tree pit adventures!

Hello all!!! And welcome to the "Tree Pit Adventure" post!. We've spent a lot of time covering our house...the inside of our house, the back of our house, the front of our house...blah blah blah.  This is an adventure through the city!  So exciting, right?

We are in the process of analyzing our street; figuring out what improvements we want to make, which ones are possible, and last but not least: which ones are affordable.  High on our list, of course, are TREES!!!!  WE WANT TREES!!!  What a desolate, HOT street we live on.  If only we had a few places that were shaded...

Some people don't think it is possible to put trees on our street because of how narrow the street and sidewalks are.  The concern is that trees combined with our stairs would make it impossible to walk down the street.  At first we were swayed by this argument, until we started walking down streets and sidewalks around the city that had even less space, but even THEY had trees!  So, these are a few of the examples we saw of what we saw.  It is possible!  Trusty Peter is the model in these photos, with a notebook for scale.

Disclaimer:  This post is definitely different than the others.  I apologize if this isn't up your alley.  Most people already have trees on their street and most likely find this predicament we're in, to be quite puzzling.  For those of you who, like us, have very little space on the street or in the yard, may these images provide inspiration and interesting models for future projects.  For those of you who are still disappointed by these photos...I promise the next one will be a home-improvement post.  I completed an exciting one this past month, and I'm excited to share!   
 
Just to put things into perspective, this is our sidewalk.  Of course, if we ended up putting trees into the sidewalk, we would have to get rid of our lovely planter...sad...but yay for trees!  The tree would be planted alongside the curb midway between the stairs. 
This is what it looks like up and down our street.  Where is the green?  No where to be found...
Now on to the tree-pit tour adventure in Baltimore!  Woo!!

Brick wall planters with adorable dwarf evergreen trees!  If only we had a brick wall...

Raised planter with full-grown tree.

Pretty close to the steps.  Tiny tree pit with a tiny tree.

Just enough room to walk.  Not exactly the best example because they don't have stairs to deal with. 

Oh!  Nice balcony!  Err...is that a balcony?  I feel like that term is incorrect...

Square bush in a raised brick planter...Ok, I'm just having fun taking photos at this point.  Cool bush though, right?

Narrow street with trees.  Same width as Miles Ave.

Tight, but totally still enough to walk through!

Inspiring tree grate.

Tree-pit model.  Ow ow!!

Tree grates would be ideal in our situation as it would enable us to make the hole large enough to promote healthy tree growth, but still keep it pedestrian friendly.

Giant tree! 

I was inspired by these trees planted right next to the brick.  Also another option if the trees in the sidewalk are a no-go.

Tiny tree pit with skinny trees.

ADA compliant? 

So much more narrow than Miles, and even THEY have trees. 

Another example of a narrow street with trees.  Notice the beautiful lightpost to the right. 

Close, but we still walked around it!  No problem! 

We could also put the trees in the street! 

This situation is probably most similar to ours.  We have stairs, and narrow sidewalks like these.  Their tree pit is close to the stairs, but due to the tree grate, it is still easy to walk over.

GIANT TREE.  Tiny sidewalk.

Tiny tree, tiny sidewalk.  End of tree-pit adventure!
Adios!  Until next time!  Thanks for reading!