Knoxville will add another tree to its nearly 750 plantings this year at the City’s Arbor Day commemoration with Christenberry Elementary students and the community on Nov. 8, 2019 at 1 p.m.

“We’ve been hosting a Knoxville Arbor Day event for about 28 years, and this is a great time of the year for it since our tree planting season is typically fall and winter,” says Kasey Krouse, Knoxville Urban Forester.
 
The City’s Tree Board, which organizes the annual event, will also announce student winners in an Arbor Day poster contest.

The City’s Urban Forestry Division has planted 750 trees in the City so far in 2019 – up from 600 last year. As part of City maintenance, crews watered them nearly 5,300 times so far during this year’s growth season. Plantings were done at City parks, in public places and throughout neighborhoods across the City.

“There is no magic number in tree plantings throughout the City,” Krouse says. “Tree canopy and greenspace is directly correlated to many social, economic and environmental benefits throughout our community.”

Benefits to planting trees include higher quality of life for residents, business development, tourism, cleaner air and cleaner water. 

“Tree planting is part of our City’s sustainability efforts,” he says. “Recent research suggests that the most effective, easiest and cheapest way that communities can combat climate change and promote sustainability is to plant trees.”

Knoxville community groups also support forestry efforts every year. Trees Knoxville, a local non-profit, planted 18 trees at schools this year, according to its website.

Krouse says this year’s Arbor Day is a great time to reflect on successes since the creation of the City’s Urban Forestry Division. 

“We have increased the number of public street trees by about 30 percent to almost 30,000 street trees in six years,” says Krouse. “We also proactively prune all newly planted trees every year to increase life expectancy and make them more resistant to storm damage.”

All public trees are inventoried to better track costs, mortality and other maintenance records. That inventory is available at https://knoxvilletn.treekeepersoftware.com/.

Additionally, Urban Forestry crews have responded to more than 2,000 storm-related calls since 2014. 

For more information on the City’s Urban Forestry efforts, visit www.knoxvilletn.gov/trees.