This past week the Armour Hills Homes Association's tree pruning contractor, VanBooven Tree Service, was out and about pruning 150 juvenile trees in the neighborhood. Now that they are finished, the City will follow and prune the remainder of the trees in the public Right-of-Way. As you may recall, we received a $90,000 Public Improvement Advisory Committee (PIAC) grant from Councilman Sharp and Taylor (thank you to our new 6th District Councilmen!) to plant and prune trees in our neighborhood. Since that time, yours truly has leveraged our relatively nominal monetary contribution as well as some good old fashion politicking to convince the City Forester to match us dollar for dollar on the tree pruning portion of the project. That makes for a $135,000 project!

Since it was determined that not all trees could be planted in available spots and/or all trees pruned in the neighborhood, the Armour Hills HOA Board decided that we would prune from Gregory heading north and plant this Spring from 65th Street heading south. If you missed any part of this project, fear not. We will follow-up with another PIAC proposal this summer to finish the job. Until then, thank you all for your patience. Hopefully you will benefit from at least a new tree or a pruned tree on your block...

Armour Hills Tree Planting & Pruning Project

Building partnerships with City Hall finally paid off. Last year City Hall may have directed $30,000 to Armour Hills for crosswalk restripping around Arbor Villa Park and along our portion of the Trolley Trail from Gregory to 65th Street, but this year we topped that.

After some hard negotiations after the redistricting went into affect last January, I convinced both Councilman Sharp and Taylor of our new 6th Council District to throw us a bone. And what a very large bone it is. Out of their FY 2012-2013 Public Improvement Advisory Committee (PIAC) contingency budget, the 6th Council District allocated $90,000 to Armour Hills for a tree planting and pruning project.

Every street tree will be pruned and a massive planting project will occur this Fall. By this time next year every street tree spot will be filled, and our old growth urban canopy will be properly maintained for future growth and prosperity. For our end of the deal, the Armour Hills Board agreed to prune all the trees that we planted using another PIAC grant in 2004 (approximately 150 trees), and we negotiated with the Parks Department to reduce the overall cost by pruning the boulevards in our neighborhood (Gregory Boulevard and Rockhill Road).

When the trees are planted, it will be up to us to properly maintain them. The first couple years of a trees life are the most important. If you have a new street tree in your yard, please water it in the summer. Thank you to Councilman John Sharp and Councilman Scott Taylor for making our neighborhood and the City a more livable, sustainable place!