Tree-loving Mandeville tallies every tree

There are 151,347 trees, more or less, within Mandeville's city limits, and only about 7 percent of them are live oaks.

Those are among the findings of a study done for the city by two graduate students and their professors at the Southern University Agricultural Research & Extension Center.

Maggie Trenary, an inspector in the city planning department, tells The Times-Picayune (http://bit.ly/NrgLj5) that the low number of live oaks was a surprise. She says the city will have to plant more.

The study found that about 22 percent of the trees are loblolly pine, 17 percent are bald cypress, and nearly 13 percent are sweet gum. Other species range from water oak to Southern magnolia to pecan.

The study was posted on the city's website last month.