Parks Department

Grant Received

We are happy to announce that the Washington City Parks Department has received a grant from the Utah Division of Forestry and the USDA Forest Service. The Parks Department will use this grant to help with their Urban Forest Project. This project includes increasing the diversity of trees in our parks and the city facilities. This will give the city the opportunity to try planting some new varieties of trees that may work well in our area and to plant other trees proven to grow well but have been under utilized.

This will provide the citizens with living examples of different varieties of trees they may want to plant in their own landscapes. Diversification of the urban forest will also help maintain the health of the forest. During the middle of the last century Dutch elm disease spread through the country killing nearly 80 million trees. Hit hardest were communities with mass plantings of elm trees. Many tree lined streets were lost completely as the disease spread in a chain reaction from tree to tree. Diversification will protect our city from losing most of our trees if a new disease presents itself. You may also start seeing small groupings of trees in the parks system. By having the ability to plant more trees this year the Parks Department will also begin planting more trees in small groups or “mini forests”.

Planting groups of three to five trees closer together mimics the condition found in natural forests and is very healthy for the trees. Different varieties of trees can be found growing together in forests with each benefiting the whole and benefiting itself from growing in the forest environment. This will provide more shade for visitors to our parks as well as improve aesthetics.

 –Paul Walker, Parks Department