Update: Tom Eblen, Lexington Herald-Leader, has an excellent story on this subject in the December 2 newspaper.
The urban forest of Lexington, KY is in serious decline as a result of extremely poor management. Large amounts of taxpayer money are spent to plant and maintain trees in Lexington’s parks and on its streets, but we also pay people to destroy those trees. Trees in our parks and on our streets are repeatedly struck by large mowers and string trimmers, killing the trees or shortening their life spans. Other trees are improperly planted or piled up with mulch volcanoes. During the drought of 2012, many newly planted trees were not watered until they were past the point of recovery from wilt.
All these things are easily avoided. Instead of wasting money planting trees and then killing them, we need to spend money to train mower operators and other city personnel and contractors to take care of trees. Trees are much more valuable than grass, but we act as if only grass is important.
I spent some time this summer and fall analyzing the status of our urban forest and created a report which I submitted to Mayor Jim Gray. I am hopeful that this will result in more public and LFUCG awareness of the problems we are creating. You can find the report in multiple formats at The State of Our Urban Forest.
What do we do about this situation? In my opinion, our current tree planting program, whether on streets, in parks or on private property is a waste of money. We are paying people to plant trees and then paying people to destroy them.
We should stop spending money planting and killing trees until we can correct the problems. This will require training of LFUCG staff, being clear in contracts with mowing and landscape contractors that damaging trees will have financial consequences, and engage the public in improving the health of our urban forest. Until we do these things, we will continue to waste money.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Dr. Kimmerer.
Thank you for putting a great deal of your professional expertise, time, and effort into the public welfare and good and at your own expense. Your article is both timely and needed to protect our dwindling urban canopy. Your recommendations are spot on, especially the fourth one about getting the citizenry involved.
Tom Eblen’s Lexington Herald-Leader article does provide an excellent summary of your report. Mayor Jim Gray is a good man, and having worked for his family, you can be assured that positive corrective action will result from your efforts.
I thank you, and others who are concerned about the symbiotic relationship between man and nature also thank you.
Rick Priest
Tom, Fayette County Government is paying an amazing amount of tax dollars to maintain mowed public land . To reduce these expenditures, the city reduces fees for contractors to mow. The contractors in turn increase their mowing speed to make up for their lost revenue. This high speed mowing is causing mower inflicted damage like the kind in your photograph. What the city needs to do is reduce the amount of mowed acres. I know that they realize this and that they are working on solutions to reduce their cost of maintenance of city land. Sometimes with good results and sometimes not (like your picture). Developing no mow areas that contain native plant species that require no mowing go along way toward reducing expensive mowing and reduce Lexington’s carbon footprint. Also if we increase the quality of life by doing these things, we will attract more jobs to Lexington. I personally would rather see native flowers and native trees rather than mowed fescue grass fields with damaged trees any day. Thank you for all your efforts to bring this important issue forward.