By Dan Murphy
The Esplanade Association is prioritizing the care of the park’s 1,700 trees after undertaking a comprehensive inventory of them last fall.
Using a cloud-based technology called ArborScope, each tree was fully evaluated based on seven categories, including health, size, age, value, ecological importance, recommendation for care and genus/species. The technology also has extensive GPS capabilities, which allows the exact location of each tree to be pinpointed in the park. The Esplanade Association completed the study in collaboration with the Department of Conservation and Recreation, and together, the two parties will continue to use AborScope to track the park’s trees. Beginning in April, the site will go live, enabling the public to access information online about each tree from the Esplanade Association’s Web site .
“The ArborScope inventory process yielded tremendous learning and insight into the current condition of the Esplanade greatest resources, its trees,” said Tani Marinovich, executive director of the Esplanade Association. “From this, we have a number of recommendations that we are working to implement in 2016, both as major tree initiatives and as best practices for ongoing tree maintenance going forward.”
On March 28, Libby Knott will join the non-profit in the newly created position of director of operations. In this role, she will work with Renee Portanova, the Esplanade Association’s horticulturist, and Kyle Richard, its volunteer and summer programs manager who oversees 3,000 volunteers, to prioritize which trees need immediate care, and, in some cases, to be replaced.