This year, Hennepin County is partnering with Valley View Elementary and Middle School in Bloomington to plant trees at the Oxboro Library and on the middle school property. We are also partnering with Tree Trust and supporting the Midtown Community Works 17th annual Arbor Day event. This year, Arbor Day volunteers will plant the 5,000th tree/shrub along the Midtown Greenway.

Hennepin County foresters hosted their first tree pruning workshop for volunteer tree stewards on Saturday, March 18. Through the class, 20 residents became University of Minnesota certified Citizen Pruners by learning the proper way to prune trees. They also got to practice their new skills by helping to prune young trees along County Road 81 in Brooklyn Park and Crystal.

Tree steward class to be offered this fall

The county will be holding a more extensive tree steward class this fall for residents who missed the pruning workshop or for those interested in learning more. The fall class will cover the basics of tree biology, tree planting, watering, pruning, and tree health through a combination of classroom instruction and hands-on, outdoor field experience. The class will be held in partnership with the City of St. Louis Park and the University of Minnesota on Wednesday evenings in September at the St. Louis Park Rec Center. Learn more.

Hennepin County installed a gravel-bed nursery at the county’s adult corrections facility in Plymouth a few years ago and has been using the trees grown in the nursery for planting projects throughout the county ever since.

Gravel-bed nurseries are a pretty simple concept. They involve an irrigated pile of pea-stone that holds bareroot trees throughout the growing season, which is typically May through September in Minnesota. Trees are harvested from the gravel-bed in October and replanted to various sites.

The gravel bed's many benefits

You may be wondering why we don’t just plant the trees in the spring. Although this is an option, we have found that trees in the gravel bed develop an extensive, fibrous root system throughout the growing season that adds stability and enables the trees to more easily adapt to and thrive in their new planting location. If we planted these trees in the spring, they may not survive as well. Planting trees in the fall also gives us more planting time. Rather than planting 1,500 trees in a week, we are able to spread that work out over two months.

Furthermore, using the gravel bed results in cost savings for the county. A typical bareroot tree costs about $50, while a containerized tree is usually about $100 and a balled-and-burlapped tree is $200. These cost savings allows us to maximize the number of healthy trees that we can plant.

As the emerald ash borer spreads throughout the county, we want to make sure cities and residents are prepared and understand their options to manage this pest. That’s why Hennepin County has created a brochure that outlines the basics of what residents need to know about emerald ash borer, including how to identify ash trees, the signs of an emerald ash borer infestation, and options for managing ash trees.

Download the brochure or order printed copies through our environmental literature order form - find it in the protecting land and water section.