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have green space in Atlanta.”

Blue Heron Nature Preserve shares its facilities at 4055 Roswell Road with the Atlanta Audubon Society and The Amphibian Foundation, making the preserve an environmental asset unlike any other in metro-Atlanta.

“We are 20 years young; I want to stress that!” Harcelrode proclaimed. “As a City of Atlanta park, Blue Heron has been nurtured and grown through community support.”

Blue Heron’s unique focus on education means thousands of student have benefitted from the park’s programs, field trips and summer camps. There’s also a strong connection to the arts community with five murals and ongoing fine arts initiative. “I say the park is ‘recre-educational,’” Harclerode said.

Harclerode said her training as an architect has given her a unique perspective on how people use indoor and outdoor space. “As an architect, I work collaboratively to create spaces that inspire, inform and educate. It’s placemaking. I’m taking that idea of placemaking and moving outdoors to create space that inspires.”

For more about Blue Heron Nature Preserve, visit bhnp.org.

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By Mark Woolsey

Richard Sussman not only appreciates Atlanta’s nickname of ‘a city in a forest,’ he brings that catchy phrase right back home.

“I have no grass,” he said of his home in the city of Atlanta. “Our landscaping is trees and shrubs and raised beds. I have completely eliminated grass.”

Sussman had plenty of opportunities to get up-close and personal to sturdy trunks and leafy branches during a career with the U.S. Forest Service. Now retired, he’s taken that knowledge and his expertise as a University of Georgia Master Gardner and put it to good use with Trees Atlanta, the non-profit which over the last 35 years has worked tirelessly to protect Atlanta’s existing tree canopy and help grow new green space.

During April, the group plans to take part in the 50th observance of Earth Day on April 22 by doing a tree planting project and educational programs. But understandably, the group’s bigger push has historically come on Arbor Day. In addition to that, a much bigger and decade-long offensive has just launched.

Sussman is one of a strong corps of volunteers that helps with various aspects of the group founded in 1985. They perform tasks ranging from actual plantings to leading tours along the wildly popular BeltLine Trail—which Trees Atlanta has dubbed an arboretum, a botanical garden devoted to trees—to handling various datacollection and administrative tasks.

Older adults are key to that effort, according to volunteer coordinator Susan Pierce Cunningham. She said many of the project leaders who helm various group initiatives are older volunteers. They work with staffers who are site coordinators—and Pierce Cunningham indicated that they are infinitely valuable.

“Just like in all aspects of life, they have more life experience with everything,” she said. “That means they understand more quickly what we’re trying to accomplish. Also, by that stage in life, they have a better idea of what they’re interested in, so they come to us with a passion for tree preservation. And if they’re retired, they have more time to devote.”

That raises the questions: just what has Trees Atlanta accomplished since its modest founding aimed at planting trees in downtown Atlanta? And what’s yet to come?

The short answer to both queries isquite a lot. It’s like the old saying about mighty oaks growing from little acorns.

“Trees” has broadened to include community tree planting programs in Atlanta and a number of suburbs, the ambitious BeltLine Arboretum, ongoing tree care, a kids’ program, workshops and educational events and advocacy efforts aimed at preserving and possibly expanding Atlanta’s tree canopy. The group said the city’s tree coverage stands at around 47% and is slowly dropping.

Sussman is one of the docents who leads tours along the BeltLine, having joined the initial phase of the program back in 2012. He seems to delight in expounding on the value of the hundreds of graceful magnolias, oaks, evergreens and other species thrusting skyward along with shrubs and native grasses. He’s also quick to point out how the plantings create a transportation route for invaluable pollinators—birds, bats, insects and the like.

The longtime volunteer said the native grass plantings proved controversial in some quarters but added that “native grasses