Restoration - Dead Tree Removal
In the 1980s the Mental Health Hospital on the southern edge of present day County Grounds Park was demolished. The foundation was backfilled, and a dozen ash trees were planted in the resulting field. Those ash trees flourished until about 5 years ago when then succumbed to emerald ash borer and all died.
Friends of County Grounds Park has coordinated with the Milwaukee County Parks Department to replace those trees and further extend the existing forest by planting dozens more trees in this field. We have already started fundraising (more details in a future newsletter) toward purchasing and planting several dozen native trees.
One step in the overall plan was to remove the existing dead ash trees. Thanks to Freddy Hoppe for leading the tree removal event, along with three other volunteers from Hoppe Tree Service.
In total, we had a total of 12 volunteers - including help from several of our park business neighbors:
Mark Geronime of the Milwaukee Medical Regional Center
Patrick Shanahan of Samapa LLC (Watertown Apartments shown in photos)
Mike Lappen of Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Services
12 volunteers, 12 trees - each volunteer did the equivalent of dragging one full tree into the existing woods line for stacking. It was an amazing, arduous, successful, and safe morning. Thanks to ALL our volunteers and our business neighbors for the sweat equity to make this happen!!
More details to come on the pending tree planting.
