City leaders plan to protect Holladay’s finest asset – trees

Lush, plentiful trees have been always been a signature sight in Holladay, and city leaders plan to cultivate that asset by starting a tree committee. A small group of residents, council members and gardening professionals met on Dec. 5 to work on the committee’s long and short-term goals.

“I am very anxious to get this started,” Councilmember Pat Pignanelli said. “Trees are the symbol in Holladay, and as citizens we need to learn how to care for our trees and which types to plant.”

One of the tentative plans is to have a professional arborist speak to the city volunteers after the annual spring clean-up event in April, and have a tree planting after the luncheon. Committee members also plan to create an educational website, with a link from the city’s website to continue to inform the public about trees.

“We’d like to find out how we can get more involvement from our city’s master gardeners and certified arborists,” Holladay City Planner John Teerlink said. “We would like them to participate and maybe hold educational tree seminars in the future.”

Still looking for interested volunteers, Teerlink said ideally they would like to get residents that are involved in horticulture and landscape architecture that would like to have a voice in recommending projects and tree plantings.

“In the past, this board has not been very active, but with more recent involvement we plan on meeting monthly,” Teerlink said. “Education will be the main thing. We have a lot of old growth trees in this area, and we want to get out as much education about pruning these trees before they become a problem.”

Residents interested in participating with the tree board should contact Teerlink directly at jteerlink@cityofholladay.com.