When I moved to Colorado in '92, I lived in Fruita, off 19 1/2 Road. That's when I learned that living here meant explaining my address to people from other places who thought I was kidding. “No, I'm serious—the address is 19 1/2 Road. That's right—it's one-half, and you can write it with decimals or fractions. Really. It's the number of miles we are from the Utah border. Uh huh. Well, it's important to us. No, it's Fruit-ah, not Fru-ee-ta. I know. It takes getting used to.”

I've never walked around downtown Fruita the way I walk around Junction's downtown. That gap in my experience was closed, recently, when Wanda Valencia agreed to show me the sights—I asked for a tour. I'd been listening to Wanda, who's on the Fruita Tree Board, talk about the plan the City of Fruita is working on for some re-vamping of the Fruita downtown—sound familiar? Many of the things being discussed in Junction about downtown redevelopment are issues for Fruita, and the topic of trees, and their place in the plan, appears to be a hot topic.

Once trees lose their leaves, I can't identify them—my tree literacy is zilch. I asked Wanda to give me the tour and identify the naked trees for me, and tell me about the issues of trees planted in urban areas. Yes, Fruita's downtown is an urban area. Of a kind.

I've been spoiled by all the trees we have downtown in Junction. know how important that lush shade is to the “downtown experience.” Here in the West, you really can't have too many trees. Growing up in Tucson and Phoenix, I didn't know about deciduous trees—trees that drop leaves in the winter. It was rarely cold enough for trees to go dormant, so we didn't see many of the trees that you can grow around here. All of our trees were new, fast growing, and had fairly open canopies—dense shade was rare.

Here, you can grow a much wider variety of trees and get serious shade, as well as textures, sizes, and colors. Imagine this valley without its trees—horrid, no? I'm talking about trees deliberately planted to provide beauty, shade, and wind control—like the trees downtown. Here are some things that Wanda told me about trees, and the purposes of trees planted in retail areas that wish to attract foot traffic:

The net cooling effect of a tree's lifetime is equivalent to ten room-sized air conditioners operating 20 hours a day. In the process of transpiration, water escapes from small openings in a tree's leaves. During hot weather, this water evaporates, and the evaporated moisture cools the air around the tree. Cool air is heavier than hot air, so then the cool air moves toward the ground and we feel the cooling effect.

Tree shade greatly reduces surface heat. Trees also help alter the direction and force of the wind, providing protection for buildings, playgrounds and pedestrian walkways. In the summer, an urban area with tree-shaded paved areas can be 12 degrees cooler than the same area without trees. Concrete reflects light and heat toward you—trees absorb both heat and light, protecting you from both.

In the summer, with an air temperature of 98 degrees, ground-level asphalt surface temperatures can be 115 degrees. Four feet above ground level, about chest/breast level, on unshaded surfaces, the temperature is 100 degrees--on the same tree-shaded surface, it will be 10 degrees cooler—an important difference when you're walking around a parking lot, or the Farmers' Market. I've never understood why there aren't more trees included when parking lots are designed—that should be mandatory in the West! It is so wonderful to be able to park in shade.

Urban areas with unshaded stretches of concrete streets and parking lots are often referred to as “heat islands”, and are 5-12 degrees hotter than surrounding areas. Phoenix, with its tall glass buildings, and miles of concrete and asphalt, is a world-class Urban Heat Island. Even trees can't fix that!

The first things I noticed about the Fruita Downtown were a new bookstore and a very cool new toy store with a zoo theme—I wanted one of everything! The other thing I noticed is that they're missing several trees, and this summer, the spots that aren't tree-shaded are going to be very hot. Bummer. Wanda told me various reasons why trees had been removed, and explained that the city will be discussing replacements at the next Tree Board meeting.

Three big crabapple trees in front of Kim's Collectibles and Jimmie's Flowers were removed, which is going to make that whole block a little heat island. It seems to me that when cities remove trees, they should have the replacement trees growing for quite awhile before they make the change—starting from scratch this spring with baby trees means there won't be much shade in 2010.

Me, I wouldn't choose crabapple trees for a downtown area, just because of the maintenance involved. Still, they are gorgeous trees and Fruita has several of them downtown—they can have fantastic canopies, and are splendid when they bloom. Unfortunately, they're either messy or require time-certain spraying, so you can't forget them once they're planted. If the town is thinking of replacing them with something less demanding, I hope they're growing those trees now—if they remove the rest of the crabapple trees, downtown is going to be bleak.

There are some nice Autumn Purple Ash trees in downtown Fruita, but other trees have been removed to provide café seating, which requires shade—I guess we'll be seeing a lot of umbrellas. Umbrellas are OK for tables, but they don't cool the surrounding areas. Trees are better.

I like Fruita—I can't believe how much it's grown. I hope they plant more trees downtown. I'll be there for the Farmers' Market next year—I'm bringing my own umbrella.

Judith is a master gardener, an American Rose Society-certified consulting rosarian, and a member of the Grand Valley Rose Society. She works at Mt. Garfield Greenhouse during the growing season. She will answer your questions at rosyoldie@gmail.com.