Taking a leadership role in regional forest stewardship and arboriculture

The Role of Public Gardens in Community Forestry

How Holden Forests & Gardens took on a leadership role in regional forest stewardship and arboriculture.

By Jessica Miller and Amanda Wood

It’s a beautiful, sunny day in late March, and the woods at Holden Arboretum are filling with bird song. On this day, the sound of birds, and a light breeze through the treetops, mixes with the crunch of leaves beneath our feet. We are walking through Bole Woods to one of

Holden’s long-term research projects. When arriving at the site, you are greeted by many multicolored flags sticking out of the ground. This project is Holden’s woodland phenology project. Phenology is the study of the timing of annual phenomena in nature, including plant emergence, growth and especially flowering, and is an important way to understand how plants may be responding to a warmer world.

Public gardens and arboreta are places where people come for expertise in displays, exhibits and information from programs. We open our gates for those who want to connect with the beauty and wonder of plants but also want to learn how they can bring those connections to nature to their home. Public gardens and arboreta occupy a special niche in their capacity to impact communities beyond their gates and gardens. By connecting with people via community forestry programs, public institutions like HF&G can amplify their mission and vision beyond their grounds. We have taken this opportunity to leverage the benefits of our institution by focusing on areas and communities that need the resources we can provide but have historically not had much access to them.

We have experts throughout both campuses who can provide technical expertise to make sure communities properly care for their trees. At Holden, our Community Forestry department focuses on engaging communities throughout both urban and rural settings. While each area has its own challenges and barriers, the pressing need is ever growing.

Cleveland used to be named the “Forest City.” That has changed with Cleveland only having 18% canopy cover in 2020. The canopy cover is not equally distributed with neighborhoods such as Downtown having 4% canopy cover while others such as University Heights have 23%. Why such a disparity? Past redlining practices led to a financial disinvestment from banks, insurance companies and more in inner-city neighborhoods which had higher numbers of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC). That lack of financial investment in BIPOC areas means that BIPOC communities are more likely to live in areas with fewer trees (Hoffman et al. 2020). This also means that these areas do not get the tree benefits those other areas get.

How can trees help such a complicated situation? Trees provide a multitude of benefits, including providing shade, mental health benefits, improving the economy and increased wildlife habitat. They have multiple solutions for a complicated situation where there is a plethora of problems and barriers. Gardens and arboreta are experts in plants and trees. They are the right resources to help rebuild urban tree canopy cover than an institution built on trees.

Not only do gardens provide opportunities to beautify neighborhoods, there is also an opportunity to educate communities on why trees matter. To make sure that trees live it is vital that everyone understands why we are planting trees. The tree recipient can learn about the benefits of the trees along with long-term tree care, providing some buy in where they are more invested in the health and wellbeing of that tree. People can then share that tree benefit and care information with their friends, family and neighbors to expand the message. That helps to educate and empowers others to become leaders in their network for trees.

Tree stewardship is not just a city issue. Northeast Ohio has very rich potential resources in its trees not only in urban areas, but in a different form in the more rural, forested acreage of our region. In Ohio, there is around 8 million acres of forested land, and 85% of that is held by private woodland owners. Although these forests

Trees provide a multitude of benefits, including providing shade, mental health benefits, improving the economy and increased wildlife habitat.

Community Forestry Research Specialist, Jessica Miller teaches tree planting.

represent immense value economically and ecologically, private land has experienced “some of the highest percentages of forest cover loss in the state in recent decades,” and most landowners have no management plan for keeping their woods healthy or productive (Small Woodland Management Manual, 2022). For Northeast Ohio, this means that non-management or poor management of forests jeopardizes their value, ecology and all of the benefits they offer to communities — even far-reaching communities in urban centers that rely on watersheds that are kept healthy by a forested landscape. Holden Forests & Gardens, with the woodland “branch” of our Community Forestry programming, reaches out to woodland owners to provide technical expertise, demonstration and education on forest management. Our programs through the Working Woods demonstration forest show landowners how they can accomplish their goals while improving forest health.

Holden Forests & Gardens becomes a leader in community forestry through actions. Our work throughout the surrounding communities shows that we care for plants, as well as the people who those plants impact. By participating in the community, we show that we are present for the long-term care and support for their forests — whether urban or woodland–beyond just planting trees. It creates a working relationship with people so they also have a chance to provide feedback that they may have otherwise not had a chance to provide.

Holden Forests & Gardens connects people with the wonder, beauty, and value of trees and plants, to inspire action for healthy communities. Our mission is what community forestry is about, so it should be no surprise that we’ve become one of the leading organizations throughout Northeast Ohio for our forests.

Hoffman JS, Shandas V, Pendleton N. 2020. The effects of historical housing policies on resident exposure to intra-urban heat: a study of 108 US urban areas. Climate8(1):12, 10.3390/cli8010012. Crossref, Google Scholar)

MEET THE STAFF

Jessica Miller and Amanda Wood are the Community Forester and Urban Community Forester at HF&G. Their work focuses on supporting healthy forests in Northeast Ohio across the gradient of rural to urban communities.