TreesMedford, in partnership with the Mystic River Watershed Association, was awarded a $5,000 Medford Community Fund grant in December 2019. The grant money was used to kick off the City of Medford’s street tree inventory.
Why does Medford need a street tree inventory? To move Medford toward the goal of 30% tree canopy coverage, the City needs data: where street trees are planted, the health of each street tree, and where tree stumps or hazard trees require removal. With a full inventory, the City will know where to focus tree-planting and tree-maintenance resources. Because the inventory is a digital resource, the City can grant the public access to this inventory.
Who performed the street tree inventory? Medford Tree Warden Aggie Tuden selected Davey Tree to perform the inventory. Tuden also oversaw this effort. Davey Tree works with municipalities to perform various urban forestry management services, including tree inventories.
How and where did Davey Tree do the street tree inventory? Davey sent a certified arborist, who, for one week in March 2020, inventoried 1,007 South Medford street trees. Using Davey Tree’s TreeKeeper software, the arborist recorded observations about every street tree, sidewalk stump, or plantable site she visited in this section of Medford.
What did we learn from this street tree inventory? The TreeKeeper software associates the arborist’s observations with other publicly available data (like Google Maps Street View). TreeKeeper also calculates the “eco benefits” of the trees inventoried (estimated at $114,326 for the 1,007 trees inventoried). In addition, the arborist highlighted for Medford’s Tree Warden four trees damaged in a March 2020 storm; these hazards were promptly removed.
This inventory is available to the public here: https://medfordma.treekeepersoftware.com/
Based on the strength of this inventory report, TreesMedford is beginning the application process for additional grants with the goal to fund a street tree inventory for the entire City of Medford.