When Faulkner was a small boy, he wandered — perhaps into a hazy plot for his future books — in the Bailey Woods behind Rowan Oak. Hundreds of trees from Faulkner’s boyhood remain, thanks to the Tree Board of Oxford.
The Tree Board is searching for an interested neighborhood to hold its annual ReLeaf Program, purposed to reintroduce trees to neighborhoods lacking in spanning canopy covers that would protect Oxonians from the heavy southern sun.
Cowan Hunter, co-chairman of the Tree Board, said a reporter for The Oxford Eagle suggested the program while brainstorming at a Tree Board meeting.
“Melanie (Addington) said, ‘I wish my neighborhood had trees,’” Hunter recalled.
“The program worked with the grant we received from the Mississippi Forestry Commission. The grant was a challenge grant, meaning that we had to come up with a program with a strong volunteer force.”
The initial deployment of the program involved volunteers working in their home neighborhoods, according to Hunter.
“The people are volunteering to plant trees in their yards,” Hunter said. “And they’re benefiting from choosing to plant because the trees will provide for them.”
There will be free trees provided that are ideal for the neighborhood’s soils and available space, according to Hunter. The Tree Board has large trees in its own nursery and purchases smaller trees from nearby nurseries.
The Tree Board has 65 listed trees designated as historic to Oxford, Lafayette County and The University of Mississippi, divided into three categories based on the size of the specimens. The Tree Board ordinance provides that planting is limited to the provided list. The list is available to the public at the city planner’s office at City Hall.
The trees’ specimens range from common Southern favorites like the American Holly or Star Magnolia to Asian trees like the Chinese Pistache that are as exotic to the South as the kudzu.
The Board is hoping to hold a ReLeaf workshop before December’s end.
Another ongoing Tree Board project is the steady progress on creating a tree canopy above parking lots.
Hume Bryant, co-chairman of the Tree Board, said the program is in its initial stages with planting on the Square.
“We have a few trees,” Bryant said. “It’s a small canopy, but soon we’ll have more trees covering it.”
He said the Landscaping Ordinance includes placing appropriate trees into the parking lots and on any clear areas post-construction. According to the ordinance, after a decade, there should be trees shading at least 40 percent of the parking lots. No parking stall is allowed to be more than 50 feet away from a tree.
The Landscaping Ordinance also ruled in 2008 that developers could not clear-cut forests if it could be helped. The Tree Board encouraged a planting program but is strongly opposed to cutting down mature trees.
“When we first began we would attend public Board of Aldermen meetings, city planning meetings and just react to their policies; now we are proactive,” Bryant said.
A 2005 study, funded by a Mississippi Forestry Commission grant and conducted by Ole Miss, estimated that more than 100 acres in the Oxford area were lost each year since the early 2000s. The most recent update in 2009 showed that Oxford has fallen below 40 percent in the urban forestry canopy — and that is the minimum ruled healthy for communities east of the Mississippi River. It now stands at 38 percent coverage with more developments coming.
Katrina Hourin, assistant city planner and former member of the committee, said that participation to influence policy change is the goal.
“The Tree Board initiated the Landscape Ordination and the city planner drafted the language,” Hourin said. “With a background in landscape architecture, retaining as many existing trees is always a goal for me. However, the topography of Oxford always presents a challenge for the developer and city alike.”
Hourin said constructing a public parking garage on the Square may be a problem.
The Tree Board is involved with ensuring that the trees are properly covering the parking lots; the parking garage is not a place where trees can grow naturally.
“Before 2007 the landscapers could clear—I mean, they will clear everything down to the dirt,” Hourin said. “Now there has to be a submitted plan to the Tree Board for landscaping and implanting trees in addition to whatever is built.
“It doesn’t focus on the flowers or shrubbery. It’s all trees.”
She said trees on city properties, including those on the utilities space on most private properties, are taken care of by the city’s government.
Mayor George Patterson appoints citizens to positions on the Tree Board. The board is strictly a volunteering committee but the city does allocate a small budget. The city’s budget funds a working inventory of all of the city’s trees, complete with GPS coordinates.
The money goes toward the Board’s numerous programs that work at restoring the urban forest to resemble even a little of the Bailey Woods of Faulkner’s childhood throughout Oxford’s numerous parking lots and concrete areas. The programs include potentially installing a third tree planter in Oxford, continuing education on the urban forestry via community workshops and especially the Releaf program. More information on the Tree Board is provided on the city government’s website: www.oxfordms.net.
