City of Trees Reviewed

GUEST BLOG

City of Trees
by Melanie Choukas-Bratley
Review by Jim Dronenburg

As a general rule, guidebooks are not entertaining. This one was, but for all the wrong reasons.

Primarily, you expect a guide to be used in situ, and therefore it should be of a size which allows one to carry it. This seems a little large and heavy for long carrying, but that may just be me.

Reading the first part of the book, about the founding of the city, which explains much of why Washington is called “city of trees” in the first place, has nothing to do with what is here now. Although it must be admitted that the story about getting Martha Washington down out of the elm tree had me in stitches.

In the second part, which is stories about various individual trees at selected locations, we get a little more meat on the bones. Sites all over (and surrounding) DC proper are covered, and although no book can cover every square inch, this sometimes does a good job.

Lastly, and comprising at least two-thirds of the book, comes the guide to tree identification. This is arranged by characteristic, which makes sense when you don’t know the name of the tree. The illustrations are line drawings, which is all you need for a lot of the weedy, common sorts, and the average user of this guide probably won’t find or notice the rarities anyway, so there is no need to bother with more in the way of illustration for those.

Finally, there is an index section, which is useful primarily for those of us who DO know trees in the first place, as it allows us to go through and chuckle at the descriptions of whatever tree is in front of us at the moment. Tree habits, leaf types, and the like, are contrasted and explained.

Of course, there are some photographs, in their own section of the book, mostly of flowers. I still haven’t figured out the criteria for inclusion, the one that comes to mind is the flower of a tulip tree which tends to be forty-feet-plus above eye level, and never noticed to begin with until long gone and the resulting cones drop.

On the whole, I have to say that the author has gone to excruciating detail to make sure that your landscape services are well informed. What she should have included is a section on planting trees, so that one can see that the crews do it right.

Lastly, if you would like to add to/embellish my views of the book, you can post your comments online here or directly to me at gotcha@aprilfools.com.

Jim's REAL review of Melanie's wonderful City of Trees book will be in the May/June 2009 issue of Washington Gardener Magazine. Have a wonderful April Fool's Day!