Workshop Results

 

Conservation Issues
The following were identified as important settings to conserve:

  • Buffers between commercial and residential areas
  • Trees, especially large trees, along commercial corridors
  • Downtown trees, particularly those at Market Square and along Market Street
  • Trees in neighborhoods, especially those which have planting strips and medians
  • Existing trees with the development of new subdivisions
  • Champion trees (noting that an inventory would have to be undertaken)
  • Trees along streams and on hillsides and ridges

 

tree-line road

Workshop participants recommended that native trees be planted in realizing this plan. Shade trees, evergreens and such under-story varieties as dogwood and redbud were frequently mentioned.

Planting Issues
In discussing what trees to plant and where to plant them, citizens offered the following:

  • A variety of trees to avoid disease problems • Evergreen as well as deciduous trees
  • New trees in older neighborhoods, especially those with planting strips and medians
  • Along commercial corridors
  • Species that will create canopy over the roads
  • Native trees
  • Dogwood trees, especially blight-resistant varieties (one citizen recommended that Knoxville should emphasize dogwood planting and market itself as the “Dogwood Capital of America”
  • White pine as a buffer species
  • Patriot elms as a disease-resistant elm, native white cedar and sugar maple

In discussing what trees should not be planted, citizens offered the following:

  • Bradford pears, noting that their longevity is limited, that they split and that they have been overused in landscaping in Knoxville
  • Also mentioned were such invasive species as mimosa and princess tree

Design Issues
Citizens offered the following information on where and how trees should be planted:

  • Design planting spaces to sustain tree growth
  • Properly prepare the soil and substrate so the trees will live, especially in difficult situations such as parking areas
  • Plant smaller trees under utility lines, such as redbud, dogwood, golden raintree, crab apple and other fruit trees, Foster holly and other small evergreens
  • Select a scale of tree in relation to the setting or type of street

 

dowtown Bradford pear trees

Bradford pears were not favored as streetscape trees for several reasons: their tendencies to split, relatively short life span and the feeling that they have been over planted; as one workshop observer noted, “imagine what the city’s landscape would be like today if oaks and maples had been planted instead.”

Other Issues

  • Develop a neighborhood tree grant program
  • Create and implement landscape plans as part of road improvement planning
  • Improve the tree planting standards for parking lot development
  • Improve the tree protection ordinance
  • Develop an internship program with the Tree Board
  • Work with the local utilities to outline cutting and planting practices
  • Expand the role of the city arborist and horticulturist positions to include plan review and inspection and neighborhood assistance in terms of tree planting plans
  • Create replacement programs for trees that are dying
  • Create an inventory of tree conditions and specific species along city streets