We used the nursery catalogs to identify wholesale and retail
nurseries, and city websites to identify cities that had municipal
arborists. We developed an interview protocol that was approved
by the UCLA Institutional Review Board, and sent formal letters to
a subset of each category. We followed up with e-mails and telephone calls to set up interviews to ascertain what factors have been
driving tree choice in Los Angeles. We were able to obtain no interviews with retail nurseries after attempting to reach a dozen. None
responded either to our e-mail inquiries, and those we reached by
telephone to ask for an interview declined. We interviewed two
sales people in person from wholesale nurseries, and two municipal
arborists, one in Santa Monica and one in Beverly Hills. The interviews were based on an interview protocol that asked about drivers
of supply (wholesale growers) and concerns driving demand for
municipal arborists.