Community Forestry Capacity Development Project

Copy of City of Auburn Final Draft Management Plan

The City of Auburn has received a Grant to Inventory all of the trees that are located within the right-of-way of the 105 centerline miles of streets within the City and in its 23 Parks. Walt Aikman will be conducting this inventory and creating the Management Plan.

The inventory will consist of the following information:column headings and description of column content or codes, measurement of tree DBH, Tree species - genus and species, Street address location, GPS coordinates, Arborist re-inspect management recommendations, Location of empty and/or potential tree planting sites, Risk tree assessment, Summary report of environmental benefits.

Once the inventory is completed, the City of Auburn will be able to create a Management Plan to better handle our Urban Forest.The Forest Management Plan will consist of: the development of budgets and work plans including timelines and tasks to meet that goal, Utilizing the tree inventory which identifies management needs, like: pruning rotations, removal implementation, and prioritization of work load, Storm preparedness and response planning, invasive species preparedness and response, Planting plan to address characteristics of the project location, Urban forest environmental cost-benefit analysis of environmental issues, and Recommendations for the City's Urban Forestry Department.

The quadrant picture above, shows the data collection from the 3 quadrants in the City. Trees and planting sites are in green and park trees are in red. 

Below are some photographs and Status updates sent by Walt Aikman, featuring some of the trees that he has encountered while he is completing the Tree Inventory. 

Scroll down for the last update from August 30, 2021

For more pictures and to follow along Walt's progress, you can check out his page Grow Auburn's Trees! 

This tree photographed by Walt Aikman is a Catalpa that is growing on Seymour Street. This is a new Cayuga County Champion tree.

Flowering Crab on Perrine Ave

View into the Hickory Canopy

Plum tree on North Park

Impact from Utility Line Clearing

Sweetgum alongside the Arterial near N. Lewis St

A sweet treat! Cherries growing in the Arterial Median

Not much more than 1.3 acres, our Market Street Park has 68 trees in and around it.

Complete Inventory of the NE quadrant of the City of Auburn. As of July 22, 2021 Walt has visited 4,476 trees and planting sites so far: 4,076 street trees and planting locations and 400 park trees.

In the parks, there are: 112 maples, 16 hickories, 33 honeylocust, 37 ash, 14 oaks.

Among the Streets there are: 1,440 maples, 786 open planting sites, 198 honeylocust, 408 ash, 52 oaks, 2 hickories, 183 pears, 86 serviceberry, 78 crabs, 69 cherries, 28 syringa, 17 Hawthornes, 10 redbuds, 5 dogwoods, 8 hophornbeams, 6 European hornbeams and 2 smoke trees. Also, ailanthus has been located in 16 locations so far, and many new Japanese knotweed stands. 

Meadow Plants along Veterans Memorial Highway

Black Pines along the Park side of the Arterial

Katsura Tree

Counting the rings on an Ash tree stump. In the above 28" example, the tree lived 49 years.

Sugar Maple growing near the top of Pomeroy Park

A big Red Oak on the NW flank of the Pomeroy Park hill. Visable from the East end of Bostwick, near the entrance to the Seymour Library's parking lot

Here are typical wounds on Maples that have decayed into serious cankers. They simply are not very resilient in the face of narrow tree lawns, urban heat, salt and the rough and tumble impacts of mowing and plowing.

As of August 30, 2021 the SW Quadrant of the City has been completed.