How the Shelby Ave. Arboretum Will Be Maintained and Thrive

It’s a big under­tak­ing to plan, cre­ate, and main­tain an arbore­tum in Nashville. Part of plan­ning for an arbore­tum is out­lin­ing just how you can pro­long its longevi­ty and sup­port it as time goes on. Here is how Shel­by Avenue Arbore­tum is main­tained, now and for the future. 

Shel­by Avenue Arbore­tum: An Overview

What is an arbore­tum? An arbore­tum is sort of like a tree muse­um, ded­i­cat­ed to edu­cat­ing peo­ple about the trees and plants in their area and across the world. Of course, this muse­um is alive! Con­ser­va­tion is also a goal of any arbore­tum, in an effort to pre­serve nat­ur­al tree species and increase aware­ness of how peo­ple and trees coex­ist. The Shel­by Avenue Arbore­tum is specif­i­cal­ly an arbore­tum project locat­ed in East Nashville, TN, and it’s home to hun­dreds of trees with more on the way. Estab­lished by the Nashville Tree Con­ser­va­tion Corps or NTCC, the arbore­tum has been under­way since 2020. There are dozens of dif­fer­ent native and non-native species of trees along­side Shel­by Ave. and on parts of South 12^th and South 13^th Streets. 

What Is Done in the Arboretum?

Progress on Shel­by Ave. Arbore­tum has been steady and focused on get­ting as many trees plant­ed as quick­ly as pos­si­ble while being con­sci­en­tious of cur­rent ecosys­tem needs and issues. The process began with the removal of some trees, name­ly aging crabap­ple trees, elms, and any ash trees that were along the path. The crabap­ple trees in ques­tion were near­ing the end of their lives and were not best equipped to pro­vide shade to the area. Some elm trees were removed after infec­tion from the Dutch Elm Dis­ease, a very con­ta­gious fun­gal dis­ease that has spread quick­ly through­out the coun­try. Ash trees were removed because of the preva­lence of the inva­sive emer­ald ash bor­er bee­tle, which is cur­rent­ly dec­i­mat­ing ash tree populations. 

The trees being plant­ed along Shel­by Ave. and the sur­round­ing streets were all cho­sen based on a vari­ety of fac­tors. As we review how the Shel­by Ave. Arbore­tum will be main­tained, it should become clear why these trees were cho­sen and how they all con­tribute to Shel­by Avenue’s longevi­ty and cre­ate a thriv­ing ecosystem. 

Pre­ven­tive Maintenance

The best defense is a good offense, and that’s why many fac­tors of main­te­nance were planned along­side the instal­la­tion of the trees in the Shel­by Avenue Arbore­tum. Take tree dia­pers for instance. These are installed with each tree plant­ed and pro­vide the ini­tial water nec­es­sary for a trans­plant­ed tree to adjust to its new home. But the tree dia­pers also refill with water nat­u­ral­ly from rain and the melt­ing of snow and ice. Instead of need­ing to water hun­dreds of trees dur­ing the dri­er part of the year, the trees in the arbore­tum have a steady sup­ply of water that’s sourced nat­u­ral­ly. By mak­ing sure that these trees get ample water year-round from the tree dia­pers, we have been able to use fund­ing for main­te­nance on prun­ing and oth­er nec­es­sary main­te­nance. Instead of installing cost­ly irri­ga­tion sys­tems that use city water, we’re able to keep that water in our reser­voirs and rivers for oth­er uses. This saves the NTCC and the city a great deal of mon­ey and effort, avoid­ing zon­ing issues and dig­ging for sprin­kler lines as well as pre­serv­ing water for oth­er plants that need it. 

When you ask: what is the pur­pose of an arbore­tum? The answer isn’t sim­ply one thing. There are many rea­sons why cities and towns across the world have cre­at­ed arbore­tums, from urban beau­ti­fi­ca­tion to pre­serv­ing cul­ture and his­to­ry and even pre­vent­ing ero­sion. Road­side arbore­tums along side­walks can also pro­vide shade and low­er ambi­ent tem­per­a­tures dur­ing the warm sum­mer months, mak­ing leisure­ly walks or com­mutes to work and school a lot safer. When you con­sid­er how much of a scorcher that mid­day sun can be, a shady side­walk is a huge relief. 

An arbore­tum is also an edu­ca­tion­al tool that can help enrich the lives of vis­i­tors and res­i­dents alike. Most of us are for­tu­nate enough to see count­less trees and plants on any giv­en day, but know­ing what they are beyond a few rec­og­niz­able types like maples and pines is not very com­mon. Now imag­ine you’re walk­ing by a beau­ti­ful tree cov­ered in spring blos­soms in an arbore­tum, and you can instant­ly iden­ti­fy it by its plac­ard near­by. You can vis­it the web­site of the arbore­tum to learn even more about the tree — things like its med­i­c­i­nal appli­ca­tions, whether it’s native to Nashville or from some­where else, and its sig­nif­i­cance in Amer­i­can his­to­ry. If you real­ly love the tree, you can even find out where to pur­chase one to grow at your home. Since these trees can grow in down­town Nashville, any of the trees in the Shel­by Ave Arbore­tum (native or not) will be plantable local­ly by hob­by gar­den­ers or any­one with a green thumb. 

Main­tain­ing the Arbore­tum With the Pow­er of Community

Keep­ing an arbore­tum healthy isn’t just about good plan­ning. You need time, resources, and peo­ple to make sure that the hun­dreds of trees are prop­er­ly pruned and looked after year in and year out. By reach­ing out to the com­mu­ni­ty, we have ensured that the arbore­tum is cared for on a dai­ly basis. It’s easy for a group of arborists and con­ser­va­tion­ists in an offi­cial con­ser­va­tion corps to care about trees, but how do you find peo­ple from all walks of life who can invest their time into them too? Thank­ful­ly, it’s been very easy. The peo­ple of Nashville are as diverse as the trees plant­ed in the arbore­tum, and count­less peo­ple have devot­ed their time to this project. Vol­un­teers are the lifeblood of con­ser­va­tion, and by expos­ing peo­ple to the beau­ty of nature and edu­cat­ing them about trees, we’ve made junior arborists out of many local children. 

Tak­ing stock of the trees along your walk with your fam­i­ly can be a fun way to engage your kids and keep them focused on their nat­ur­al sur­round­ings. We’ve made it easy for any­one to report an issue with the arbore­tum; sim­ply con­tact us on our web­site or through social media and let us know the prob­lem. We’re hap­py to get some­one out there to take a look, and we real­ly appre­ci­ate every­one who’s will­ing to chip in. 

So what are some things we’ll be main­tain­ing as we con­tin­ue to sup­port the Shel­by Ave. Arbore­tum project? We’re work­ing with the city to make sure that trash is col­lect­ed from the recep­ta­cles in a time­ly man­ner, but lit­ter does pose a dif­fer­ent prob­lem. Whether it’s a windy day and the recy­cling bin blew over or some care­less per­son delib­er­ate­ly threw trash along the arbore­tum, we’re going to be clean­ing it up. It’s easy to take pride in your neigh­bor­hood when it’s clean, so there are count­less peo­ple com­mit­ted to doing just that. If you see a mess that’s too large for you to tack­le, you can con­tact us and pro­vide some infor­ma­tion on where we can find the trash. It real­ly does take a vil­lage to take care of an arbore­tum, and we’re for­tu­nate to have vol­un­teers will­ing to put in the work. 

In order to ensure that the arbore­tum is worth vis­it­ing, we need to make sure that it looks great year-round. But lit­ter isn’t just an eye­sore, it can harm our trees. Oil and gaso­line from cars or lawn­mow­ers, rock salt, lawn pes­ti­cides, and oth­er haz­ards can enter the soil around our trees and cause prob­lems. Tree dia­pers actu­al­ly act as a good buffer between phys­i­cal dam­age to trees from things like lawn­mow­ers and weed eaters, and they can even help to keep salt from being absorbed by the soil. In a tree dia­per, the chem­i­cals of rock salt release more slow­ly into the root sys­tem, pre­vent­ing any shock to the tree. 

See­ing Shel­by Avenue Arbore­tum Thrive

The best resource we have for main­tain­ing the arbore­tum on Shel­by Avenue is you. Vol­un­teers plant­ed many of the trees and donat­ed mon­ey to pur­chase the trees and oth­er sup­plies nec­es­sary for plant­i­ng them. Some peo­ple who vis­it an arbore­tum may not even be aware that they’re in an arbore­tum. These vis­i­tors are sim­ply walk­ing from one place to anoth­er, but they’re see­ing the cul­mi­na­tion of a great deal of effort. As the world con­tin­ues to change, our con­nec­tion to nature remains crit­i­cal. If we can instill a love of trees and con­ser­va­tion in a sin­gle per­son, our work is all jus­ti­fied. We’re lucky to have the peo­ple of Nashville on our side with this arbore­tum project, and it tru­ly would not have hap­pened with­out peo­ple like you vol­un­teer­ing and get­ting their hands dirty. 

Want to get involved with ongo­ing plant­i­ng efforts on Shel­by Avenue? Whether you’ve got ques­tions, want to vol­un­teer, or just need to report some trash, we’d love to hear from you and make sure you’re involved in this com­mu­ni­ty project. Give us a call or con­tact us via email, and let’s help Shel­by Avenue thrive together.