Photo by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Don Cafaro, the City of Mountain Brook’s senior arborist, stands across from one of the traffic islands in Mountain Brook Village.
As green leaves and new blooms begin to emerge for spring, Mountain Brook senior arborist Don Cafaro can be found around the city, making sure that the city’s verdant landscaping is looking its best.
“I’ve always likened a desk in a building to a prison sentence,” Cafaro said. “There is some office work, but the bulk of my time is spent out and about, somewhere within this wonderful office that just happens to be 12.5 square miles.”
Cafaro said he is pleased to be a vital part of the community and to bond with residents while he does his work.
“I’ve interacted with so many citizens and been able to establish long-term relationships with other city employees,” he said.
He has plenty of advice for Mountain Brook residents who want to step up their own gardens and landscaping.
Cafaro primarily uses store-bought plants for the city, which he said may prove less daunting for first-time gardeners at home, as well.
Rather than starting from scratch with seeds, he said, “I think it’s probably more helpful for folks to learn how to evaluate a given plant for its overall quality wherever they should happen to be shopping.”
When asked for suggestions of unusual or lesser-known florae to include in plantings, Cafaro expressed more interest in tried-and-true gardening staples.
“I tend to prefer native plants if given the choice,” he said. “But there are times when an ‘exotic’ will fit our performance requirements equally, and/or might be more readily available.”
Cafaro said it’s important for gardeners to distinguish between an exotic species (which doesn’t naturally grow in the area) and an invasive species (which can harm the local environment by spreading and choking out other species).
“They often get lumped together, and that can limit one’s options if they are entirely averse to non-native selections,” he said.
One of the most important keys for successful planting, Cafaro said, is focusing on the things that are within your control, such as selecting healthy, high-quality plants and choosing a planting site that not only matches your moisture and sunlight needs, but also can accommodate the plant’s future size when it’s fully mature.
“Pass on plants with root defects, poor form, etc. With trees, field-grown or balled-in-burlap is usually a better choice than ones from containers,” he said.
Finally, it is better to maximize the area of favorable soil for root growth, rather than the size of the tree, Cafaro said.
“The saying is old because it’s true — ‘put a $10 tree in a $100 hole, rather than the other way around,’” he said.
