Here’s my weekly digest of cool stuff. Lots of trees and insects. The weather’s great here in Ohio and crews have been slammed. Stay safe this weekend and enjoy it!

• U.S. scientists still unsure about cause of Colony Collapse Disorder.
• Related: Europe ignores science, bans neonicitinoids anyway.
• Bad news borers: an update on EAB and its recalcitrant cousins.
• Planting ancient trees.
• Book: “New York City of Trees.”
• Above: The first cut of the season at my place. Share your own glamour shots here.

Some very cool stuff this week: New research examines the health benefits of green space, a big western city is raising water rates because people are saving too much water and Pittsburgh reinvents itself from a black smudge of steel factories to a champion of sustainability. There’s hope for us all.

See you next week.

• ASLA Guide to Washington’s great landscapes was nominated for a Webby. Vote here.
• Portland is raising its water rates to keep pace with lagging demand.
• The outside Rx.
• Related: New study further shows health benefits of green space.
• 6 of the coolest trees in America.
• How to choose a board for your business.
• Above: Pittsburgh’s Phipps Conservatory opens the Center for Sustainable Landscapes at the “greenest building on Earth.”

A massive chainsaw suspended from a helicopter to trim trees?

You say overkill. I say New Jersey.

a Forest Year from motionkicker on Vimeo.

This week I’ve got a lot of cool forest stuff for you, as well as the latest research on America’s Hispanic population and a neat case study on water savings. Needless to say, it’s a grab bag. Have a great weekend!

• New research on America’s Hispanic population.
• Case study: Stay Green saves HOA a ton of water.
• Old-school tree ID.
• The most admired companies (via Joe Calloway)
• How to write a great bio.
• Seven-layer forest.
• Above: A year in the forest condensed into a two-minute time-lapse. (via Karen Varga)

Here’s our weekly round-up of cool stories from the web. Enjoy!

• Bottle gardens.
• Preserving landscaping’s past.
• Flower-powered clock.
• When trees die, people die.
• ValleyCrest replants all the trees it cut down to make way for the shuttle.
• Above: A robot uses a Stihl chainsaw to carve nesting stools out of a log.

Here’s our weekly digest of articles, images and generally cool stuff from the web. Enjoy, and have a great weekend.

• Build your sales pipeline.
• Using sound to build a garden.
• Native plant bingo with CLCA.
• How to irrigate a slope.
• Bummer: Why trees can’t grow taller than 300 feet.
• Employee addiction.
• They’ve got a bit of universe conflation here, but this is pretty good.
• Above: GIFs of plant leaves withering.

Here’s our round-up of the most interesting (and mostly tree-related) stuff from the web this week. Enjoy!

• The world’s oldest trees are disappearing.
• Related: A map of the world’s oldest trees.
• NatGeo sends its photographers to document research on the President in Sequoia National Park.
• Damage to the NYBG from Superstorm Sandy.
• One non-tree thing: Asking great questions.
• Above: Time-lapse of fall in Central Park.

Here’s our weekly digest of fun and interesting stuff from the world of the web. Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

• Property managers have the happiest jobs in America. (via @austinoutdoor)
• Related: Surprising (to some) six-figure jobs.
• ValleyCrest channels L. Frank Baum in Los Angeles.
• Housing reports are too sunny. (via @jasoncupp)
• How to store hand-held equipment.
• How Americans are distributed around Starbucks.
• Above: Rick Brandenberg: Turf, bugs and rock and roll at NCSU.

As if ash trees didn’t have enough to worry about, now they’re under attack from a deadly fungus that has killed 90 percent of the trees in Denmark.

From the Guardian:

The tree disease Chalara fraxinea has already decimated around 90% of Denmark’s ash population and was found in the UK at a Buckinghamshire nursery in February, raising fears of a repeat of the epidemic of Dutch elm disease in the 1970s, which wiped out virtually the entire mature population of elm trees – 25m – by the 1990s.

Infected trees have since been found at a handful of locations in the UK from outside Glasgow to Cambridgeshire – though not in wild areas outside recent plantings and nurseries – and are being destroyed as they are found. Ash accounts for around a third of our wooded landscape which includes parks and hedgerows, as well as woods and forests.

A ban on imports could come into effect as early as November, just before the planting season, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said on Thursday, launching a consultation that ends on 26 October.

The environment secretary, Owen Paterson, said: “This disease could have a devastating impact on our native ash trees so we need to take action to stop it. We are working towards a ban on imports, and looking to impose movement restrictions on trees from infected areas.”

Most crews take down trees because they’re diseased or infested. These guys in L.A. are taking down more than 400 so the decommissioned space shuttle Endeavour can make it to it’s final resting place.

Space shuttle Endeavour’s final 12-mile journey through the streets of South Los Angeles already promises to be a meticulously planned spectacle: a two-day parade, an overnight slumber party in Inglewood and enough hoopla to create a giant traffic mess.

But for some residents in South L.A., the excitement of the shuttle rumbling through their neighborhoods quickly faded when they learned that 400 trees will be chopped down to make room for the behemoth.

The California Science Center — Endeavour’s final home — has agreed to replant twice as many trees along the route from the shuttle’s docking place at Los Angeles International Airport to Exposition Park.

But that’s not enough to satisfy some tree lovers.