Trees help to clean the air and water and add beauty to the New England landscape, but they can also cause electricity disruptions and threaten safety if they’re not properly maintained and located. Given recent weather events, trees are a hot topic and thus were the focus of a conference of the Connecticut Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (CTASLA), held on June 16 at Naugatuck Valley Community College’s Fine Arts Center.

This was the second time the group has convened at the College. “They did a soils program last year actually in the Playbox [Theater] and it went really well… since we’re the only community college in Connecticut that has a horticulture program, it seemed like a nice fit,” said NVCC Horticulture Science Program Coordinator and CTASLA member Chris Tuccio. “There’s a lot of employers here getting continuing education credits and we have about 15 students registered, so it’s a really great networking opportunity for them.”

Total attendance at the conference topped 100, including landscape architects, tree wardens, arborists, landscape designers, educators and students. CTASLA President Barbara Yaeger believes the strong turnout was rooted in the topic: trees.

“People don’t like their power out… but a lot of people want the trees for ecological reasons, for shade, for aesthetics…we believe with better planning and better management, there will be less of those wire-tree conflicts,” Yaeger said. “We’re hoping this opens some eyes.”

Yaeger notes that Connecticut has more trees now than it did during Colonial times thanks to reforestation. “That’s why you see those stone walls in forests—because they used to be fields.” In fact, Connecticut is the fifth most forested state in the country and leads the nation in forest cover in urban areas.

Yaeger says it’s important to maintain trees in urban areas to provide shade, storm water management and aesthetics. “Trees make people comfortable.”