So this afternoon I got back from being out of town overnight to find my redbud tree waiting in the driveway!
Each year, members of the Metro Council receive some discretionary funds. Now, say what you will about the idea of a discretionary fund — and on the whole, I think it’s ridiculous –but don’t take my word for it. Read S-town Mike’s blog for ongoing coverage — but in East Nashville, we’ve been the beneficiaries of some community-minded council members. For instance, council discretionary funds helped build the neighborhood/school playground at Lockeland Design Center on 17th St. four years ago. And this year, they funded the East Nashville Tree Project.
Councilman Mike Jameson notified ReDiscover East, an umbrella neighborhood organization, that he’d have discretionary funds this year, and asked for suggestions from the neighborhood groups within RE on spending those funds. The redbud project was the winning suggestion, among many I heard about.
Particularly appropriate in a formerly shady neighborhood that lost hundreds of mature shade trees during the April 1998 tornado, this effort has put 250 redbud trees into the yards of East Nashvillians. [Incidentally, there have been 2-3 other large scale tree planting events that I know of in the years since 1998. There are a lot of really healthy, rapidly growing 7- and 8-year-old trees in this neighborhood.
My new redbud tree joins a much-older redbud and a very old dogwood in my front yard. The older redbud in particular was badly damaged by last spring’s late freeze and this summer’s extensive drought, but this fall I discovered even some of the worst branches were budding again. Here’s to spring!
