NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A lot of new trees have been planted in the past year after many were uprooted by last year's tornadoes and storms.
The citywide tree-planting campaign Root Nashville, led by the Cumberland River Compact and Metro Nashville, is working hard to replant trees and bring their benefits to Nashville.
"We've set a record at Nashville of 8,000 trees planted as of last season," Campaign Manager Meg Morgan said.
But now that we've hit a dry spell, all of those trees really need extra care in the form of water that they aren't getting right now.
Morgan says the first three summers of a new tree are critical.
"Without this watering time over the summer, all these efforts to replant and bring benefits of trees to the neighborhood actually won’t matter if you don’t take care of the trees over the summer," Morgan said.
New trees need 10 gallons of water each week. For every week it doesn't rain at least one inch, Morgan says trees need help with supplementing.
There are a couple of simple ways you can do that. For example, leaving the hose on low at the base of your tree for 10 minutes or for twice a week you can drill small holes in the bottom of a 5-gallon bucket (average heavy-duty bucket size) and leaving at the base of each tree for slow soaking.
Root Nashville's goal is to plant 500,000 trees by 2050!
Morgan says this is the time of year where we are getting ready for the next planting season which is every mid October through March.
She says currently accepting applications for our Neighborhood Planting Captain program [rootnashville.org].
They also have an upcoming series called Canopy Conversations [rootnashville.org], open to all.
You can go on their website to see where the trees are planted or check out theirfacebook page.
Residents can reach out to hello@rootnashville.org if they want to be added to weekly reminders about tree watering.
