Tree Work Update
Weather permitting, Maxalea, Inc plans to be on our campus Thursday and Friday, November 2 and 3, to plant the first 12 trees to start replacing some of the 18 that we have lost within the past two years. The courtyards of Cluster H will get three, Cluster C one, and Cluster L one. Others will be planted in various open spaces.
Tree Inventory & Assessment.
Bartlett has extended our inventory & assessment beyond the initial 600 trees to include all of the trees in the designated areas on our campus. This effort, costing $3,400, was completed on Tuesday, October 17 and added another 171 tagged trees. (The actual number of trees now exceeds 800, as some of the inventoried trees are actually multiple entries using a single tag.) The inventory can be viewed here on this read-only website, https://arborscope.com/inventories/10399 or ArborScope. For further information about tree maintenance activities that have been completed and that are ongoing, click here.
TREE INVENTORY
Broadmead Tree Inventory and Maintenance
For the past year and a half, Stan Wilson has been coordinating the Tree Program with Jesse Russel of Broadmead Inc and John Davis of Bartlett Tree Experts.
In 2022, the BRA gave Broadmead, Inc. $10,000 to pay for an inventory and assessment of the trees on our campus in order to develop a management plan for their care and well being. That inventory and assessment was completed on July 19, 2022, and selected results of the inventory can be viewed here on this read-only website, https://arborscope.com/inventories/10399 or ArborScope. Here, for each of the 600 trees inventoried, one can find its common and scientific names, tag number, diameter at breast height, canopy radius, condition and location. One can search for a tree with particular tag number, all trees of a particular type, or all trees according to their condition (good, fair, poor). Or one can also click on one of the dots on the map to identify that particular tree. The map was prepared by Bartlett Tree Experts who conducted the inventory. To read Bartlett’s full 176-page final report, Tree Inventory and Management Plan, click here.
Following the initial inventory and assessment of 600 of our trees, Broadmead Inc paid Bartlett $31,151 this past fiscal year to complete a number of top priority tasks – removals, pruning, pest management and fertilization – many of which represented safety issues.
With the initial priority work completed, we are now moving into Phase 1 for the Tree Program. Broadmead Inc has budgeted $35,000 for tree maintenance this FY, and a Broadmead Tree Maintenance Fund has been established with a current balance of $50,000; this totals $85,000 of funds that could potentially be made available to fund tasks this FY.
The first two tasks proposed for this FY involve $55,000 for pruning and $3,857 for removals and pest management. The Buildings & Grounds Committee has reviewed these two tasks and recommends them for funding by Broadmead Inc. Assuming that they are funded, that would leave $26,143 [$35,000 + $50,000) - ($55,000 + $3,857)] remaining to fund additional tasks this FY.
The third task, pest management ($11,475), will be addressed next spring; and the fourth, fertilization ($2,720), will be addressed later this fall. An additional task is needed to extend our Inventory & Assessment of 600 trees on our campus to include the remaining 150 or so trees that mostly were planted as part of the Master Plan; this will cost ~$2,500. Finally, the 22 trees that have been removed over the past two years need to be replaced. Stan will determine the associated cost from a vendor, and Eric van den Beemt will check the availability of the Guyton Fund to pay for this effort. Planting new trees should be done this fall.