New Wave Of Parkway Trees Being Planted

Another wave of tree planting for Louisville's Olmsted Parkways system is underway.The Olmsted Parks Conservancy has donated funds for 319 new trees. The parkway system was originally designed to be lined with trees, but many have been lost to development and severe weather.This round of tree-planting began on Algonquin Parkway, where conservancy president Mimi Zinniel says tree loss is noticeable."Typically, this would have two rows of trees as Olmstead had designed it," she says of the corner near Algonquin Parkway and Third Street. "We don’t' see the second row on this side, nor do we see even the first row on that side. So there are spots where it's definitely not looking like a parkway, but the intent is to get it back to the original design."The conservancy has worked with Metro Government to plant 900 trees along parkways in the last three years. Zinniel says the planting of more trees will be put on hold briefly while other renovation work is done."We're going to take a little breather right now—there's a big master-plan that's been developed to address all the parkways and to institute, over time, multi-use paths along the parkways. So that will kind of reconfigure some of the tree planting," she says.