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by Brian Brus, Journal Record

OKLAHOMA CITY ??" Where city residents might rarely notice a few shrublike trees holding down the banks of a drainage ditch or a sapling transplant in a neighbor's yard, Mark Bays sees a thriving forest.

???It's more obvious when you fly into Oklahoma City,??? said Bays, the state's urban forestry coordinator under the Department of Agriculture. ???What do you see? You see lakes; you see homes; you see a whole lot of trees. It's a much wider canopy than people realize.???

Bays said his job title seems like an oxymoron that draws a lot of blank looks from people ??" an urban lifestyle typically doesn't evoke the image of wildlife, nor does such green growth seem coordinated. Bays said his daily work feels more like he's just one player in a much larger community effort. He can legitimately adopt the old adage about missing the forest for the trees.

???The one tree in your front yard is your urban forest,??? he said. ???But it's connected to your neighbor's lawn; it connects you to life on your street.???

Good forestry doesn't happen by accident, he said. Even in the thicker forests closer to the East Coast or to the Northwest, loggers have to replace their stock. Those natural resources lead to jobs to create tangible products such as furniture, Bays said, while urban forests are just as valuable for providing shade, erosion control and social gathering places. Green infrastructure is vital to the life of a city.

???So that's what I do: I deal collectively with all the trees in a city or town and I look for ways they can be cared for to maximize their benefits so that we'll have them today and many years to come,??? Bays said.

Like people, trees have their own personalities, he said. Some have the potential to grow tall; others might stay closer to the ground to withstand Oklahoma's strongest winds. Water and ground minerals also make a huge difference in how tree genes are expressed. That's why the Tulsa metro area sometimes seems greener than Oklahoma City, he said. Interstate 35 runs between zones; it's the boundary of the eastern forest and the western prairie.

???The structure and makeup of the trees that start in Oklahoma City can be found all the way over to the East Coast,??? he said. ???But that's why central Oklahoma trees tend to be a little bit smaller. Actually, the biggest forest we have in our state is called the Cross Timbers, which we actually live in in Oklahoma City.???

Bays divides his time among community tree-planting projects, securing sapling supplies, teaching horticulture classes and getting his own hands dirty in the earth. In early June, he'll be in Kingfisher to teach the municipal parks department and utility workers how to maintain their trees. He recently helped a nonprofit group plant about 150 trees in Moore where homes had been damaged by tornadoes.

On his time off, Bays enjoys managing his own little forest in his backyard in Oklahoma City, practicing what he preaches on less than an acre.

???If you talk to a public works director, he has miles of streets laid out in his memory with every pothole,??? Bays said. ???If you ask a fireman where all the fireplugs are, he's got that mapped, too. The same thing goes with trees in your forest. You've got to inventory and assess every tree, use that information to keep your community healthy.???