Arbor Day Snapshot: Chattanooga, Tennessee
Story and photos by Gene Hyde, City Forester for City of Chattanooga, Tennessee
In Chattanooga
we held our Arbor Day celebrations on March 2nd, though we planted the
majority of trees in early December in order to allow
them to begin the process of establishment before
the heat and drought of summer arrives. We found
out long ago that if we can plant in December, the
tree mortality is usually less than 5%.
ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) and
Veterans' groups planted nearly 100 trees in the
Chattanooga National Cemetery as part of a reforestation project. Background: The storms and
tornadoes of 2011 brought down over 100 trees
in the cemetery, including some massive old oak
trees. The cemetery does not have any money for
tree planting. Fortunately, I got a $200,000 tree
planting grant from the Tennessee Department
of Economic and Community Development to
plant trees in Chattanooga as part of a remediation project that was initiated by the Volkswagen
officials when they decided to build their new VW
assembly plant in Chattanooga.
Veterans' groups planted trees in the Chattanooga National Cemetery.
On our March 2nd Arbor Day, we held a special
ceremony with color guards and local Veterans'
groups to complete the plantings. Since there is at
least one Veteran from all of America's wars buried
in the Cemetery (going back to the Revolutionary
War), we decided to plant a special tree to represent the Veterans of each of these wars.
(below) Junior ROTC group heads to planting site together.
28
Getting young people involved in the tree planting.
City Trees
