Understanding Oaks: a Tree Walk and Talk with Alison Lancaster

Join us in the TPF gardens with Los Angeles consulting arborist Alison Lancaster. She’ll guide us through evaluations of some oak trees on the grounds to help us identify and understand:

• Maintenance, such as drought-conscious watering
• Common structural issues that could make tree or branch failures more likely
• Oak tree life cycle, including fire adaptation, growth patterns, habitat value
• Young tree structural pruning versus mature tree safety pruning
• Non-harmful, native insects that use oaks as habitat, versus destructive, invasive pests that damage oaks
• Diseases that cause health and structural problems in oaks

This will be a walk-and-talk presentation with time for discussion, so feel free to bring photos and questions about your own oaks at home. A great class for anyone wanting to learn more about this important California keystone species.

Resources:

Oaks in the Urban Landscape by Larry Costello, Bruce Hagen, Katherine Jones – UC ANR

The Nature of Oaks by Douglas Tallamy

Alison Lancaster has been a consulting arborist in Southern California since 2016. She has an AS in Wildland Resources and Forestry from Citrus College and a BA in Political Science from UC Irvine. She began her career in trees as an intern at City of Pasadena Urban Forestry where she helped organize the City’s street tree database, participated in a survey tracking the spread of invasive shot hole borer in the Arroyo, and met her mentor - Jan Scow. She trained and worked with Jan for five years before starting her own company. Since then she has earned her Registered Consulting Arborist qualification, was elected to the Western Chapter ISA Board of Directors, and received the 2019 WCISA Young Professional Award.

Find her at alca-llc.com