2013 Fall RNeighborWoods Community Tree Planting

2013 Fall RNeighborWoods Community Tree Planting


Once again neighbors rolled up their sleeves this fall and planted trees, celebrating the great green community-building national NeighborWoods month. Thanks to over 220 volunteers, this fall 275 trees have found homes in Rochester neighborhood boulevards.

September 28, was a gorgeous fall day and over 175 Rochester neighbors came out to plant 200 boulevard trees in the Kutzky Park neighborhood. We started a little after 8:30 am, all of the trees were in the ground by 11 am. A neighborly thank you to all who came out to lend a hand, pull on a bright pink tie-dyed t-shirt, and plant trees on 4.4 miles of this neighborhood’s boulevards.

Some feedback from Kutzky neighbors:

  • “It sure felt good to have a hand in planting all those trees. Walking through the ‘hood is an all new experience now! Thank you for the trees.” – Guy
  • “The neighborhood with all of its new trees looks so good! Leafy and alive. By the way, how timely for me to watch the Lorax last week.” -Susan

This RNeighborWoods tree planting was funded by a grant from the DNR specifically to remove Ash trees and plant native tree types in boulevards. Trees were planted from Kutzky Park down north, west on 16th Avenue. Tree types planted included Ginkgo, Amur Corktree, KCT, Disease Resistant Elm, Ornamental Pear, and Redbud. Appropriate shorter trees were planted under power lines. Long-standing partner in our tree plantings, The Olmsted County Youth Commission did not disappoint turning out over 100 local high school student planters.

RNeighborWoods is a partnership between Rochester Park and Recreation, Rochester Public Utilities, Maier Forest & Tree, Herring Ecologistics, Olmsted County Youth Commission, and RNeighbors. We collaborate to educate the community about the importance of our urban forest and help neighbors plant street trees. This planting was a continuation of our participation and celebration of NeighborWoods month. On September 21, over 45 neighbors worked together to plant 75 trees in the Historic SW neighborhood boulevards thanks to their Neighborhood Tree Grant award. We’ve been told that each neighbor “adopted” these city trees, are watching over them, and watering as needed.


Thanks to our partners and sponsors who made this event a reality. You can check out exactly what local and national businesses and organizations did what as well as check out the t-shirt graphic on our website. Special thanks to the national organizations the Alliance for Community Trees who provided us with a mini-grant to help pay for the tie-dyed t-shirts that were given out to our tree-rific volunteers.

Go to our facebook page for lots of pink t-shirt clad photos of tree planters. We look forward to seeing you at our spring tree planting events!

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