Exploring the Importance of Residential Tree Care
Although the largest stands of trees can usually be found in parks, the majority of Nashville’s canopy cover is spread out across the many residential yards and gardens that make up our city’s neighborhoods. This positions homeowners as essential stewards of the local canopy ecosystem, distributing the responsibility for care and creating many opportunities (as well as some challenges).
In this article, we’ll go over how trees on private property create important public benefits and how individual decisions about a given yard’s landscape affect the local environment at large. Toward the end, we’ll share some tips on best practices for tree and yard care that help maximize the enjoyment of a residential property while contributing to a resilient urban canopy.
Private Property, Public Benefits
Most of Nashville’s land is privately held, and in residential areas, individual homeowners each oversee a portion of the city, regardless of parcel size. This means that any decision that affects the presence or condition of trees on a property affects the neighborhood’s wider canopy ecosystem.
Since a significant portion of Nashville’s trees are located on private property, a substantial part of the city’s ecosystem services are produced on private property as well. The benefits of productive, mature trees are both immediate and area-wide:
Temperature regulation: Big trees cast shade and cool an immediate area by several degrees, while the impact of many trees across a wide area can affect local temperatures more substantially (especially in urban areas, where a lack of trees increases the heat island effect).
Soil stability and water management: The root systems of trees hold soil in place, which absorbs rainwater and reduces flooding. Trees then absorb, use, and release some of that moisture into the air as vapor, contributing to lower local temperatures and potential precipitation.
Air quality: Planting trees along streets helps intercept and reduce the spread of exhaust pollutants, while trees across an area absorb carbon and other particles from the air, reducing local pollution levels and the potential for ground-level ozone development.
Wildlife habitat: The trees and green spaces that a given property offers to wildlife create stopovers and longer-term habitat for birds, insects, mammals, and other animals that live in an area, which perform small-scale ecosystem services that affect the condition of the wider environment (such as pollination, food web participation, and other types of micro-management of natural spaces).
Enhanced mental and physical health: The presence of trees in residential yards and across a wide area increases the comfort, beauty, and engaging nature of those individual and neighborhood landscapes, with real health benefits for residents and passersby.
In addition to private property creating environmental benefits for its residents, neighborhood landscapes collectively create a “placeness” that is unique to and reflective of the location. Nashville is one of the most forested cities in the US, with many opportunities to maintain and improve upon that identity!
Residential Stewards of the Urban Canopy
The choices made by private property owners have real effects on the local environment, so it’s important that homeowners feel informed and empowered to manage their properties in ways that are beneficial to both themselves (through enjoyment and improved property values) and to the local community and environment (by performing ecosystem services and beautifying the city).
Education, legislation, and programs at universities and non-profits help landowners, large and small, manage their properties responsibly. While landowners regularly influence biodiversity, water quality, and carbon sequestration, they often lack the resources or knowledge to manage these complex systems themselves. Organizations like the University of Tennessee Extension offices and the Nashville Tree Conservation Corps help bridge these gaps, promoting effective private land management and unlocking its potential.
Area-wide coordination of land management is difficult, but if everyone makes conscious, responsible decisions about their properties, the effects combine in aggregate to result in good local environmental conditions.
Residential Tree Care
The major opportunity (and challenge) in private ownership is the fact that individuals can manage their property as they decide and take action as they please (within the law, of course). Residential property owners shape the local ecosystem and urban canopy by making decisions about:
Planting and landscaping: Residents who make the choice to plant a tree and maintain existing trees on their properties ensure the presence of these trees in the first place. Homeowners also make decisions about the species being planted within the context of particular property characteristics like soil type, topography, and other vegetation.
Yard care methods: When doing yard work like mowing or aerating, it's essential to avoid damaging trees. Using eco-friendly yard products, monitoring soil health, and mulching appropriately all contribute to a healthy landscape. For best results when it comes to specimen health and longevity, homeowners should work with a certified arborist.
Water use: It’s important to avoid overwatering and to choose plant species suited to the land's topography. In dry, elevated, or sloping areas, select drought-tolerant species and monitor moisture levels. In lowlands, plant wet-soil species and create rain gardens to collect excess water (which also benefits reptiles, amphibians, snails, and other water-loving wildlife).
Wildlife habitat: Resident gardeners can plant a variety of flowers, trees, and other plants to create vertical layers from the ground up, including both canopy and understory trees if space allows. A robust landscape attracts important native wildlife.
Care for Nashville’s Trees
Property parcels are distributed across the city, and so is care for Nashville’s trees! Usually, the people closest to a tree are the best candidates to care for it. When homeowners maintain their yards individually, they contribute to the maintenance of the city’s environment as a whole. Even non-owning residents can contribute to local environmental care by volunteering with nature groups, working in an ecological profession, or staying aware and sharing knowledge with friends and family on the importance of good tree care.
If you have space to plant a tree in your yard, check out the NTCC tree sale, which connects homeowners to high-quality trees at below-retail prices. If you don’t have any space to plant, consider donating a tree for us to plant in an open spot somewhere in Nashville, sign up to volunteer with us, or make a financial donation to NTCC. We deeply appreciate every contribution that we receive, all of which helps us fulfill our mission to support and protect Nashville’s trees!
Subscribe to our email newsletter for regular information on Nashville’s canopy, and visit our Linktree for more NTCC content.