What the Different Planned Sections of Shelby Avenue Arboretum Mean for Nashville

The Shel­by Avenue Arbore­tum instal­la­tion is in full swing, so what bet­ter time than now to review what the dif­fer­ent planned sec­tions mean for Nashville. No street along this Nashville arbore­tum is get­ting any­thing less than the full treat­ment, so read on and learn how we’re regreen­ing our city piece by piece. 

The project has mul­ti­ple themed sec­tions that exhib­it dif­fer­ent aspects the nat­ur­al splen­dor that trees can pro­vide. There are numer­ous themed sec­tions including: 

• Trees That Bloom

• Large Canopy Tree Exhibit

• Native Trees

• Red­bud Colorburst

• Trees in Memoriam

• Native Ever­greens

• Pol­li­na­tor Meadow

• Maples From Around the World

• Trees in Tough Places

• Cher­ry Blos­som Exhibit

These seg­ments will be des­ig­nat­ed by phys­i­cal sig­nage that will be installed at the begin­ning and end of each seg­ment. These seg­ments are meant to cre­ate addi­tion­al inter­est in the arbore­tum and help cre­ate an edu­ca­tion­al and curat­ed expe­ri­ence for res­i­dents and vis­i­tors on the arboretum. 

Tree species were select­ed care­ful­ly giv­en the fol­low­ing para­me­ters and challenges: 

1) Safe­ty & Infra­struc­ture Con­straints: Did the sec­tion over Shel­by Avenue have pow­er­lines? Were there under­ground util­i­ty lines? How close to the inter­sec­tion can we plant trees? These are all ques­tions we fac­tored into our tree selec­tions. Over­head pow­er­lines were espe­cial­ly a con­straint we had to work with dur­ing plan­ning the arbore­tum in Nashville.

2) Har­di­ness of Tree Species: These trees would be plant­ed in between con­crete and asphalt, sur­round­ed by the con­stant bom­bard­ment of urban pol­lu­tion, these trees will get bumped, run over, snapped, hit by hail, and may be very tasty to hun­gry pests liv­ing in the city. We had to select trees that were going to be tough enough to live in this very urban dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed area of town.

3) Arbore­tum Sta­tus: This project will become a cer­ti­fied arbore­tum from mul­ti­ple sources and an arbore­tum is a liv­ing tree muse­um and some­times used for research pur­pos­es. The more vari­eties of tree species we have the more inter­est­ing and high­er-lev­el cer­ti­fi­ca­tion this project will receive from com­mis­sion­ing sources. We did our best to cre­ate as many vari­eties in this arbore­tum as possible.

4) Inspi­ra­tional Beau­ty: We want­ed to make sure the trees we select­ed in the project would be of visu­al inter­est to peo­ple liv­ing near and vis­it­ing the project. We inten­tion­al­ly picked trees that were col­or­ful and inter­est­ing through the chang­ing of the seasons. 

Here are the fol­low­ing details of each segment:

Trees That Bloom – Locat­ed between South 7^th Street and South 10^th Street on the north side of the street, this area of Shel­by Avenue was con­strained by over­head pow­er­lines which lim­it­ed our options for tree plant­i­ng. We select­ed small and medi­um canopy tree species that pro­lif­i­cal­ly bloom such as Kwan­zan, Yoshi­no, Ake­bono, and Okame cher­ry blos­som vari­eties, ​‘Pur­ple Robe’ Black Locust trees, D.D. Blan­chard South­ern Mag­no­lia, and Red­bud vari­eties. This sec­tion had pre-exist­ing trees we worked around includ­ing large Crape Myr­tles and Crab Apple trees. This sec­tion is more of a work in progress than oth­er sec­tions cur­rent­ly due to the many pre-exist­ing trees already in place here. Over the years we will grad­u­al­ly remove and replace trees in this sec­tion with addi­tion­al bloom­ing trees and will work towards a beau­ti­ful curat­ed expe­ri­ence along this sec­tion of the street.

Large Canopy Tree Exhib­it – Locat­ed between South 7^th Street and South 10^th Street on the south side of the street, this area of Shel­by Avenue was not con­strained by over­head pow­er­lines and so we decid­ed to plant trees with the largest poten­tial here. We select­ed a hand­ful of oak tree vari­eties, cypress, gink­go, elm, and maple trees to run up and down the hill­side of Shel­by Avenue. This area was also chal­lenged by pre-exist­ing trees plant­ed in the medi­an and so the expe­ri­ence is a work in progress as we grad­u­al­ly remove and replace trees that are more fit­ting for the curat­ed experience.

Native Trees – Locat­ed between South 15^th Street and South 16^th Street on the south side of the street, this area of Shel­by Avenue had just the right con­di­tions to plant some of our favorite native Nashville trees that could with­stand the harsh life of a tree between con­crete and asphalt. Con­strained only by over­head com­mu­ni­ca­tion lines, we could plant medi­um and small canopy tree species here. We were able to source Amer­i­can Horn­beam, Black­gum, Ken­tucky Cof­fee Tree, and Yel­low­wood tree species. Fur­ther down the street into Shel­by Park near the hair­pin curved road hill­side named the ​‘Pol­li­na­tor Mead­ow’, every tree species except for two are a native tree species — near­ly 120 native trees are plant­ed in this area.

Red­bud Col­or­burst Exhib­it – Locat­ed between South 16^th Street and South 19^th Street on the north side of the street, this part of Shel­by Avenue had over­head pow­er­lines which lim­it­ed our options to small canopy tree species. When review­ing the avail­abil­i­ty of tree species from our sup­pli­ers, we found an inspir­ing selec­tion of red­bud trees avail­able and so we decid­ed to ded­i­cate an entire sec­tion of this project to show off this beloved ver­sa­tile tough native tree in all its splen­dor and forms. Amongst the vari­eties grow­ing are: East­ern Red­bud, West­ern Red­bud, Ris­ing Sun Red­bud, All­ey­cat Red­bud, Flamethrow­er Red­bud, Car­li­na Sweet­heart Red­bud, and Bur­gundy Hearts Red­bud

Trees in Memo­ri­am – Scat­tered through­out the project will be spe­cial trees in memo­ri­am for indi­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties of peo­ple. A seg­ment planned for ded­i­ca­tion to mil­i­tary ser­vice men and women is plant­ed between South 14^th Street and South 15^th Street. San­gu Kaku Japan­ese Maples and Twobley’s Red Sen­tinel Japan­ese Maple are espe­cial­ly red leaf and twigged vari­eties that sym­bol­i­cal­ly rep­re­sent the sac­ri­fice and pas­sion of ser­vice mem­bers in our community. 

Native Ever­greens – Locat­ed at the bot­tom of the Shel­by Park below the spring cave is a dis­play of native ever­greens. East­ern Red Cedars, Vir­ginia Pine, and Loblol­ly Pines are plant­ed in abun­dance in these areas.

Pol­li­na­tor Mead­ows – Locat­ed on the hill next to the Ten­nis Courts of Shel­by Park is a ​‘No Mow’ area with about 120 native trees plant­ed through­out the hill­side. Includ­ed in this area are Bur Oaks, Shag­bark Hick­o­ry, Dog­woods, Ser­vice­ber­ry, Bald Cypress, Sour­wood, South­ern Mag­no­lia, Pecan Trees, Per­sim­mon, Amer­i­can Beech, Ohio Buck­eye, and Paw Paw trees.

Maples from Around the World – This exhib­it locat­ed between South 15^th Street to the entrance of Shel­by Park, dis­plays a vari­ety of maple trees from all over the plan­et. This dis­play of trees shows the ver­sa­til­i­ty and glob­al foot­print of the maple tree. Species include Sug­ar Maple, Arm­strong Colum­nar Maple, Tar­tar­icum, State Tree, Ruby Slip­pers, Hot Wings, Pacif­ic Sun­set, and Emper­or 1 Japan­ese Maple.

Trees in Tough Places – Locat­ed between South 10^th Street and South 11^th Street, this inhos­pitable area of con­crete and asphalt dis­plays how adapt­able some tree species can be in harsh urban envi­ron­ments. Chi­nese Pis­tache, Zelko­va, and Hedge Maple trees grow here com­fort­ably in this area.

Cher­ry Blos­som Exhib­it – Locat­ed down South 12^th Street, over 90 Ake­bono Cher­ry trees line both sides of the street. In ear­ly spring, these trees put on a daz­zling fleet­ing show just for a few days turn­ing both sides of the street on this rolling hill into a soft pink spring­time show. 

Restor­ing a Nat­ur­al Nashville 

Ulti­mate­ly, the vision of the Shel­by Avenue Arbore­tum is to con­nect peo­ple to nature in their every­day urban neigh­bor­hood expe­ri­ence. The trees plant­ed in this project are inter­est­ing, at times unique, and beau­ti­ful. This project endeav­ors to inspire the next gen­er­a­tion of nat­u­ral­ists, or at the very least, help peo­ple see nature in its splendor.

If you want to take part in this mis­sion, you can sup­port the project direct­ly. Also, be sure to check out our Nashville tree sale to improve the splen­dor of your own Nashville prop­er­ty! And feel free to con­tact us with any ques­tions or com­ments — we’d love to hear from our neighbors!