Photo by Sydney Cromwell.
A young tree planted at Homewood Central Park.
Trees in Homewood may be showing their fall colors right now, but members of the Homewood Environmental Commission are thinking green with a series of events to plant new trees and protect existing ones.
HEC member Julie Price said the city celebrates Arbor Month in November, which is also an ideal time to plant new trees so they’ll have time to grow a deep root structure before the summer heat. The HEC will be concentrating its efforts to preserve the city tree canopy this month.
“The month of November, there’s going to be a lot of things happening for trees in Homewood,” HEC member Ryan Dye said.
NEW TREE ORDINANCE
Revision of the Homewood tree ordinance, which governs landscaping and greenery requirements around the city, including commercial properties, has been in discussion for several years. Part of the problem, Dye said, was the city’s past tree ordinance was ambitious but not easily enforceable.
“I think it’s going to be a practical, working tree ordinance,” Dye said of the new code.
The HEC has worked with the city on several drafts of the tree ordinance, and the city opted to hire a consultant from Renta Urban Land Design to create the ordinance based on research into similar ordinances in other cities.
Price said the main goal is to create a city code that clearly outlines the responsibility of businesses and developers in Homewood to preserve or replace plant life on their property.
“The biggest outcome that I hope for, that I think most of the HEC members share, is enforcement. Because we had a really rigorous ordinance on the books for a lot of years that wasn’t enforced,” Price said.
Ward 1 City Council Rep. Andy Gwaltney said there were a number of meetings with Renta, the HEC and city officials to nail down the specifics of the ordinance. It was critical to make sure the city’s codes enforcement and building, engineering and zoning staff members were “comfortable with enforcing everything that’s in it.”
The ordinance includes encouragements for developers to plant native trees rather than invasive or non-native species, Renta said. Developers can still present hardship cases if they don’t meet landscaping and greenery requirements to ask for a variance, he said. Existing properties that are currently out of compliance would have to meet the ordinance’s requirements in the future if they did significant construction work.
Renta said on Sept. 24 that most of the ordinance would be enforced through city staff rather than the Planning Commission or Board of Zoning Enforcements, which would take less time and would help in cases where a tree must be removed due to hazardous conditions.
The new tree ordinance first came up for council discussion in September and was sent to the Planning Commission for review and approval on Sept. 24.
While it can be hard to enforce rules on landscaping and planting on private properties, Gwaltney said the goal of the new ordinance is that “we can have the most impact on making sure we get some green” around the city.
With the new ordinance, Price said the HEC plans to hold a lunch and learn event in January with the City Council and the Alabama Forestry Commission for developers, builders, landscapers and tree removal companies.
Price said the luncheon will cover “this is why we want trees in Homewood, this is how to take care of a tree, this is how to plant a tree, this is what our tree ordinance says, you need to abide by it if you’re going to do business in Homewood.”
‘A TREE IN EVERY YARD’
The HEC has primarily worked to plant trees in city property and rights-of-way for the past several years. But Price said that will never be enough to preserve a citywide tree canopy since the vast majority of Homewood is private property.
“We’re not hitting the bulk of Homewood land, and so how do we get people to plant trees on their private property?” Price said.
To make tree planting more appealing to Homewood residents, the HEC created a tree planting program in June that offered planting packages of local species with the help of area landscaping companies. Dye said that program resulted in 18 new trees being planted.
Through the month of November, the HEC will offer the tree planting program again.
Photo by Sydney Cromwell.
The Homewood Environmental Commission planted a row of overcup oaks and bald cypresses down the median of Central Avenue in 2015. The HEC does these tree plantings every year, but this year it’s working on a new program to encourage plantings in Homewood residents’ yards.
Residents who participate can choose either a small native tree for around $150 or a larger species for around $550. The participating companies — Endless Summer Landscapes, Father Nature Landscapes or Curb Appeal — then provide advice on the best species and planting location before they put the tree in the ground. The planting price includes labor, soil mix, mulch, water bags and a warranty.
Price said the HEC will also match 50 percent of the planting costs for the first 30 trees, and they intend to make yard signs for the homes that participate.
“As a commission, it’s hard to find things that we can do that we feel like are having an impact,” Price said.
“This felt like something we were doing that was tangible.”
The residential program will likely be an annual fall event, Price said. She’s hoping to at least get 30 new trees planted, though she jokingly said her goal is to put “a tree in every yard.”
MORE FUNDING
While Price and Dye are hoping to grow their new residential program this year, the HEC will also continue some of its existing planting programs with an additional budget.
Price said the HEC has been funded about $15,000 from the city for planting on municipal properties, street medians and rights-of-way in 2018. This is about double what the HEC has had to work with in previous years.
In August, HEC member Amy Milam and retired Birmingham Botanical Gardens Director of Education Henry Hughes presented some of their planting ideas to the City Council.
The proposal included up to 18 trees planted in 2018, with that $15,000, and up to 45 trees in 2019, with $35,500 in proposed funding.
High priority spots for planting included Overton and Woodland Parks, several city entrance points and locations around Green Springs Highway, U.S. 31, Shades Cahaba Elementary School and other sites. Hughes and Milam said the list is open to changes, and they also want to find ways to encourage planting on private property.
The city approved more than $45,000 for mature tree planting in its 2019 budget.
Price and Dye said the additional funding for tree planting has partly been spurred by City Council representatives who support the project themselves or have heard from residents about the importance of keeping up planting efforts.
“I think it’s a natural progression of, you’ve got citizens of Homewood who are concerned about this, who’ve seen it come up at the city meetings and stuff like that from time to time,” Dye said.
The HEC will also partner with Samford University on Nov. 10 for its annual Green Skies planting, which will place 250 saplings along Shades Creek Greenway. A donor is providing five trees for each of Homewood’s elementary schools, too, Price said, and those will be planted around Thanksgiving.
Photo by Jesse Chambers.
Samford University students, from left, Reese Cameron, Josh Hunt and Nate Van Dyke volunteer at the Green Skies over Homewood tree planting event on the Shades Creek Greenway in Homewood in 2016. The HEC will again partner with Samford on Nov. 10 for its annual Green Skies planting, which will place 250 saplings along Shades Creek Greenway.
The HEC is working with the Forestry Commission as well, to complete an “index” of Homewood’s trees through mapping software called iTree to catalog locations and information.
“We have this new commitment to trees, and we’re going to try to keep the momentum going through these projects,” Price said.
TREE CITY, USA
Homewood became a Tree City, USA, for the first time in March. The title, bestowed by the Arbor Day Foundation, signifies that Homewood maintains a tree board or department, has a community tree ordinance, celebrates Arbor Day and spends at least $2 per person each year on tree planting and maintenance.
Price said the HEC will be putting up the official Tree City signs around Homewood in November to celebrate the accomplishment. Homewood joins its neighbor cities Mountain Brook, Vestavia Hills and Hoover in achieving the Tree City status.
Dye said planting projects like the ones the HEC has planned for this month are important not only for maintaining Tree City status, but also for the benefit of the city as a whole.
“It really does make people drive slower, it really does make it cooler… it does increase property values, it does decrease electricity costs,” Price said. “… It does improve air quality from the pollution.”
Price said residents should take the time to plant a tree now, even if its full benefit for Homewood may not come in their lifetime.
“You look around Homewood, you’ve got a lot of very old, mature trees, and then new trees. We’ve got to plant trees for tomorrow’s generation before these 100-something-year-old ones go,” Dye said.
“It’s time to plant one. We live in the shade of trees that were planted by the last generation, it’s time for us to plant ours.”
