Our Projects
Urban Arborists has decades of experience caring for the trees and shrubs at some of the most renowned city institutions. Whether nurturing a single tree or an entire park, our matchless attention and care remain the same.
Over the years, we’ve cared for trees in a variety of urban landscapes. In a city park, we created a protocol for pruning two ancient elms, preserving what otherwise would have been lost. In a New Jersey garden, we turned twenty wily hornbeams into a double allée of standards. In Manhattan, we transformed a barren median into a garden of oaks, zelkovas, roses, arborvitae and viburnum. And for the Metropolitan Museum, we’ve trained formally pruned trees from infancy in the nursery, and now in the field on their plaza. Below are some of the projects we’re especially proud of.
Significant Park Landscape
For a major city park, we performed a tree inventory that guided renovation. We have been caring for the 200+ trees there for over a decade. More recently, we helped them to prepare a succession plan to envision and guide their planting over the next century.
Divine Trees
The largest privately owned public space in Manhattan belongs to a church. We plant, diagnose and care for all the trees and shrubs on their 13 acre campus. When new gardens and playgrounds were installed, we did the planting, and two decades later, we still care for them.
Double Allée
A woman in New Jersey saw a picture of two dozen hornbeams set in a double allée, pruned identically. She planted the trees, but had no idea how to prune them. That’s where we came in. We set up an elaborate, moving frame to allow us to turn twenty four trees into what she had imagined; a double allée of identical standards.
Preserving Beauty Through Construction
A client on the Upper West Side was making an addition to their house, and thought they needed to remove a large weeping cherry in their back garden to do it. Through a combination of careful air spade investigation and pruning, we proved that they could keep the tree, Today, the house’s third-story bedroom window is surrounded by cherry blossoms in the spring.
Shared Garden
In Midtown Manhattan, a common garden behind a dozen brownstones was home to E.B. White’s famous Second Tree from the Corner. We cared for it until it was about to fail, and made cuttings to preserve the historic tree. One of these cuttings has grown into the willow tree in our work yard (pictured!), allowing E.B. White’s legacy tree to live on. We continue to care for the other trees and shrubs in the garden.
Elegant Manhattan Median
We first started working at this major public green space when we noticed that their mature cherry trees had a serious insect pest. We controlled the pest, and have been pruning and caring for the plants in this space ever since. We provide them with flowering plants as well as trees and shrubs.
NYC Historic Trees
We examine many of the New York City Parks Department’s great trees. These tree are very old and very large. Failure of stems or of the whole tree can result in serious harm and damage, so we perform climbing inspections that include tree risk assessments of trees that can be over 90 feet tall.
Courtyard Renewal
For over two decades, we have been working with a number of the great garden-centered apartment complexes in Jackson Heights. In the beginning, one of them was full of neglected, enormous Norway maples. Over the years, we have gradually planted other trees – bringing in 3” caliper trees through narrow underground stairs – and have helped shape and design all their woody plants into a fine, large garden.
"I have been working with Urban Arborists for the last six years on tree pruning and tree pit work in the Village Alliance district. Bill Logan's knowledge of trees is unmatched."
— D.L. Director of Planning for a major BID, Manhattan