Penn Hills Shade Tree Commission Takes Root
Newly formed Penn Hills Shade Tree Commission hopes its efforts grow for years to come.
BY W. B. FRESA
For Kathy Raborn, it’ s pretty simple— she loves the environment and she loves trees. A landscape designer by trade, she’ s spent the last 20 years not only growing her business, but also cultivating connections in her Penn Hills community in hopes of someday giving back.
That time has finally come.“ I’ m so thrilled the Penn Hills Shade Tree Commission( PHSTC) is finally up and running,” says Raborn.“ It’ s taken quite a while to pull everything together, but we’ ve already had a huge outpouring of support from our mayor and council, as well as the Penn Hills community. We’ re looking to do great things here.”
Raborn, President of the PHSTC, explains that her idea of a formal commission began when she started her business more than 20 years ago. After taking a class in late 2016 about shade tree commissions, she wrote a letter to Penn Hills Mayor Sara Kuhn, asking her to consider a request to establish the PHSTC. A friend then suggested she speak at the next council meeting in order to get the ball rolling.
“ Anyone who knows me knows I don’ t like public speaking,” she notes.“ But in March 2017, I gave a presentation to city council about the benefits of a shade tree commission. It was well-received and we finally got the ordinance passed and full approval in June 2017.”
During the second half of last year, Raborn developed a plan and enlisted PHSTC members, whom she had worked with at times over the years. They came with many years of expertise and shared the same vision of a better environment for their beloved Penn Hills.
The PHSTC members include Sandy Feather, a certified arborist and former writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette gardening column; Bryan Dolney, an ecologist with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy; Katie Schuller, a horticulturalist at Phipps Conservatory and lead orchid grower; and Tori DeJohn, a mechanical engineer and community activist.
Once the commission was in place, the first act of business was to have a fundraiser, and the members began calling on different businesses to help. Autograph Signs donated a six-foot banner, Penn Hills Lawn and Garden Center donated a tree, and the commission set up a booth at the 2017 Penn Hills Summerfest and raffled off the tree. By October, PHSTC held its first community tree planting at Penn Hills Elementary School.
“ We planted 15 trees of two different species. Lowe’ s donated five crabapple trees and we salvaged 10 tulip tree seedlings from a Penn Hills resident’ s yard. We used our first $ 100 to buy fencing, posts and mulch to protect the trees from our very prosperous deer population and were lucky enough to have the Boy Scouts help dig the holes we needed. It was a true community event,” Raborn says.
It was also the momentum needed to use the winter months to do more planning and hold a workshop on how to prune trees. Fifteen Penn Hills residents attended and they pruned 50 trees at Penn Hills Elementary School.
“ The school is only 5 years old but the trees definitely needed some attention and our workshop did the trick,” explains Raborn.
Once spring arrived this year, PHSTC kicked things into high gear.“ We held our first Arbor Day tree planting in Penn Hills Community Park on April 14,” notes Raborn.“ More than 60 people attended
PHOTOS BY PENN HILLS SHADE TREE COMMISSION
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