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Project Updates for Tree Campus Higher Education

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  2. September 2025 Tree Committee meeting

    Associated Project(s): 
    Tree Campus Higher Education
    Red Oak Rain Garden
    Campus Tree Inventory

    The Tree Campus Advisory Committee met to review the overall program and committee membership. 

    • The new Campus Landscape Architect, Bridgette Moen, joined the committee. 
    • Team members discussed potential additions to the committee, including students, faculty, and staff.
    • Justin Vozzo shared a status update on the tree grant.
      • Picking up several trees - 90 planted total this year
      • Ryan is heading up the F&S side, Stirling is helping to manage the contracts
      • Justin is hosting some tree plantings across the state, Urbana and in Macomb
      • Two events each spring and fall for next tw o years
    • The South Arboretum Woods rehab has several plants being added, and there are student employees funded by the SSC.
    • The Red Oak Rain Garden (RORG) is doing another plant installation this fall, and works with volunteers. They also installed interpretive signage.
    • The Urban Wood Reuse program is going well.  The new mill is here, and they are working to hire more students.
    • The Committee began reviewing the goals in the 2024 Tree Care Plan.
      • The Tree Keeper Inventory is complete for F&S, and it is still in progress for the Arboretum. 
        • There is also the ARC GIS inventory - which pulls from Tree Keeper
        • Ongoing to keep it up to date
        • Tree surgeons are responsible for logging them into the system
        • Assistants are responsible for logging the stump removals - the sub-foreperson goes in to remove it and change it to open or vacant site
        • When it is removed it is no longer counted in the inventory
        • When a new tree is planted - working with the vacant sites and updating those, planning and potential planting spots and adding the new tree in there
        • We need to identify opportunities to update the existing inventory
          • Longer-term - should do an update - including the diameters of the trees - should update that, changes over time
          • Might need to be a tree expert - how to appropriately update it regularly - tree health - arborist or someone who knows a lot about trees
          • Potentially it could be through dendrology - students could potentially do DBH measurements and baseline health questions
          • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Justin is working on developing an arboriculture class, could do some tree inventory as part to that class 
        • ​​​​​​​Set a goal in 2025 Tree Care Plan to develop a comprehensive plan for handling tree inventory updates: get a plan together for how to do a regular update and comprehensive update.

  11. Illini Oak-Hickory Teaching Arboretum StoryMap

    Associated Project(s): 
    Tree Campus Higher Education

    Jay Hayek, Extension Forestry Specialist, compiled all the information and effort for the 1.5-acre oak-hickory teaching arboretum. The story map below contains information on the two phases of planting and great pictures of the volunteers that contributed. In addition to the story map, there is an attached Excel spreadsheet detailing the exact species in their respective plots. 

     

    ArcGIS StoryMap: https://go.illinois.edu/oak-hickory-arboretum

     

     

    Attached Files: 

  14. News Gazette: Kathy's Mailbag- Younger trees on the UI Quad

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Tree Inventory
    Tree Campus Higher Education

    Below is a snippet from Kathy's #Mailbag, from August 19th, 2022, published in the News-Gazette regarding the foliage on the University's main quad. Brent Lewis and Ryan Welch of UI Facilities and Services were featured and shared information on the history and approach to plantings on campus. 

    The article can also be found at: https://www.news-gazette.com/toms-mailbag/kathys-mailbag-aug-19-2022/article_ae9f4d54-6f93-5a24-8551-e533204bf577.html

     

    Younger trees on the UI Quad

    "As I walked through the University of Illinois’ Main Quad recently, I noticed that most of the trees did not seem as old as I would expect. What is the history of the trees on the quad? Have there always been trees there? When were the current batch of trees planted?"

    A short history, courtesy of grounds superintendent Ryan Welch and landscape architect Brent Lewis, both with UI Facilities & Services:

    In 1929, the Board of Trustees took the advice of renowned landscape architect Ferruccio Vitale, who warned that planting a wide variety of trees on the Quad “would tend to minimize the impressiveness and the serenity of the planting design.”

    Elm trees were a traditional choice that did well in local conditions. “No tree is more majestic nor better adapted in form and in scale to form the setting of the University's new buildings,” Vitale said. So the walkways on the Quad were lined with elms sometime around 1930. Over the years, they were lost to Dutch elm disease and phloem necrosis (elm yellows). The last elm trees were removed in 1956. 

     

    The elms were replaced with thornless honey locusts. This tree was selected for its large mature size; light, dappled shade produced by the lacy foliage; tolerance to a wide range of soil conditions and drought; and yellow fall color. Only six honey locusts remain on the main quad from the 1956 planting.

    A variety of native oak trees replaced trees that were removed. Most of the recent plantings include chinquapin, swamp white and bur oak.

    The university’s current strategy is to diversify the tree plantings with native species and avoid overplanting any one type of tree. Welch and Lewis note that the current diversity of plantings on campus is “very high and is on par with most arboretums.”

    Diversifying the campus’ tree inventory turned out to be a wise decision. Between 2015 and 2020, more than 500 of the UI’s ash trees – about 3% of the campus’ tree inventory – were removed due to the damage caused and risk posed by the emerald ash borer. The wide variety of trees on campus meant that the loss of even 500 ash trees did not leave large swaths of the campus looking barren.

    Plant geeks may view the campus’ tree plan and get to the tree inventory database at http://go.fs.illinois.edu/tree.

  17. Tree Map Partnership

    Associated Project(s): 
    Build Resilience with Our Local Community
    Campus Tree Inventory
    Tree Campus Higher Education

    From: Heidi Leuszler <HLeuszler at parkland.edu>
    Subject: Tree Map partnership

     

    Hello all, I hope this finds you and yours well!

     

    I am on the Sustainable Campus Committee at Parkland College and we are discussing updating our campus tree map and digitizing it. I am including all of you in this email because I am wondering if we do not have to recreate the wheel and can join an existing tree map in our community.

     

    I have worked with https://www.opentreemap.org/ in the past, but the $3000 price tag per year is rather steep for us. Do any of you use this program?

     

    In a quick search, I found the following local Tree Inventory maps (all of which Parkland campus is missing from):

    City of Urbana https://urbanail.treekeepersoftware.com/index.cfm?deviceWidth=1920

    UIUC campus https://illinoisedu.treekeepersoftware.com/index.cfm?deviceWidth=1920

    City of Champaign ROW Trees https://cityofchampaign.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=7e979451571143abbf5befb6eeb9b01b

    City of Champaign  https://gis-cityofchampaign.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/cityofchampaign::city-owned-trees/explore?location=40.130930%2C-88.279305%2C13.85 

    Champaign Park District https://cparkdistirct.maps.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=88afa8b642a1464585eaad55a999dd5a

    Urbana Park District https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aaX3IOinNA&t=23s (but I could not find public access to the inventory)

     

    Is it possible we can add our campus data to an existing map? Perhaps we all partner and can add city, park, and campus data to make a more comprehensive community map.

     

    If you are interested in this, have thoughts, know a better person to contact, etc., let me know and we can get a meeting together to discuss possibilities.

     

    Thank you!

    My best,

    Heidi

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