T-R PHOTOS BY ROBERT MAHARRY Participants in a Tree Walk at Riverview Park led by City of Marshalltown Parks Supervisor and Arborist Kristin Titus and Gary Fulton and Erin Carpenter of Trees Forever pose for a photo underneath a Chinkapin Oak near the pedestrian bridge at Riverview Park on Friday morning.

“We don’t plant trees for us. We plant them for the next generation,” Erin Carpenter of Trees Forever explained at the beginning of a Tree Walk at Riverview Park in Marshalltown on Friday morning as she stood next to a Kentucky Coffeetree planted last spring that will take 40 to 50 years to reach its full maturity.

City of Marshalltown Parks Supervisor and Arborist Kristin Titus led the walk with a small group of interested observers to showcase the wide variety of tree species at Riverview, the city’s largest park, as part of a larger series of events in conjunction with National Park and Recreation Month. Titus, along with Carpenter and fellow Trees Forever Representative Gary Fulton, shared history and information about different trees from the Gingko to the Riverbirch to the more well-known sycamores and oaks, including which are invasive and which are native, signs of distress and the various fruits and syrups that come from them.

City of Marshalltown Parks Supervisor and Arborist Kristin Titus, left, examines a branch from a volunteer walnut tree while Gary Fulton of Trees Forever, right, looks on during the Tree Walk at Riverview Park held Friday morning.

“For Park and Rec Month, we’ve done a lot trying to get people out into areas of parks and trails that they wouldn’t normally visit or they might not always be aware of — little parks here and there, doing park cleanups, trails, trail loops, just trying to kind of get out more and asking Trees Forever to help with this walk because trees are always a big topic,” Titus said. “And everybody wants to know more about them, and we’re always trying to promote trees other than maples. So today was gonna be a really good opportunity to showcase some of those trees that are good for our area that we don’t normally plant… We really try to promote a lot of tree diversity, and that includes differing of tree species. It includes differing of tree census. It includes differing of tree ages, so we’re always trying to help promote those tree diversities.”

Of course, trees hold particular significance in Marshalltown because so many were lost due to the 2018 tornado and 2020 derecho, and Trees Forever, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Marion, is leading the charge to replenish the community’s tree stock for future generations.

“We plant trees every spring and every fall in parks and on the street terraces, and we give away trees every spring and fall for homeowners to put in their backyards or front yards. We’ve been doing that for 30 some years, and Erin’s kind of taken the initiative to look at a bigger plan (with) the city council and planners and look at more of a broad strategy for the long-term rather than just operating on a year-by-year basis, which is what we really need to do,” Fulton said. “Because we can plant quite a few more trees than we already have, but we’re making progress. That’s kind of where we’re going.”

Carpenter added that she has “big dreams,” and she’s excited about an upcoming tree inventory set for this fall, which will be the first one completed since 2015 — before both natural disasters.

“Trees just do so much for people that they don’t even realize. Every junior high kid is like ‘Oh, trees make oxygen. We breathe it. We need trees to breathe.’ But they even reduce incidents of domestic violence. They slow traffic. It’s like people complaining about how fast cars drive down their street. If we line that street with trees, naturally, the psychology of it, the narrower area, the shade, people will slow down,” she said. “They extend the life of pavement. We won’t have to spend so much money as a community repaving in another 50 years. Just the mental wellbeing and the reduced anxiety and just overall health for our community, it’s huge. It’s not a silver bullet to make the community wonderful, but it’s definitely a piece of it and it touches on so many different things.”

The selection and placement of tree sizes and species for the right locations is also crucial, Fulton said, while acknowledging that some residents may have negative feelings about trees after suffering extensive damages to their homes and garages as a result of fallen trees during the storms.

“Urban forestry science has come a long way in our understanding of what is the right place for the right tree,” Carpenter said.

Carpenter, Fulton and Titus look forward to the results of the upcoming inventory to assess what has been lost and what is necessary going forward. Additionally, there is still one more Walking Wednesday event scheduled for Wednesday, July 30 at Wilson Circle with a special guest highlighting progress on the Iowa River’s Edge Trail, and a grand opening celebrating the improvements and recreational courts at Riverview is set for Thursday, July 31 at 10 a.m. To learn more about Trees Forever, visit https://treesforever.org/ or https://www.facebook.com/treesforever, and the latest updates and happenings with the Parks and Rec Department can be found at https://www.facebook.com/MarshalltownParksandRecreation.