Cemeteries are home to a large percentage of Pittsburgh’s trees—but there’s room for many more to be planted. With few roads and buildings, they offer a substantial amount of usable green space. Allegheny Cemetery, one of Pittsburgh’s oldest cemeteries, stretches out across 300 acres in Lawrenceville. A green respite in an urban landscape, roughly 56% of the cemetery is covered with trees, and there’s a potential for 43% additional canopy. Ever since storms decimated more than 300 trees in 2002, Tree Pittsburgh and TreeVitalize staff and volunteers have worked hard to increase the canopy and tree diversity there, planting 200 trees to date. When Davey Resource Group completed a tree inventory for Allegheny Cemetery in 2006, they discovered that the cemetery was overpopulated with pin oaks. Such a lack of species diversity can make the forest more susceptible to disease and pests. Just as important as species diversity is age diversity – and that’s an issue Homewood Cemetery is planning to counteract with tree plantings. The cemetery on Frick Park’s borders contains an older population of trees, which means large numbers of trees could die in the coming years. Volunteers have planted more than 100 trees in addition to caring for aging trees through pruning and maintenance. The data collected for the Urban Forest Master Plan allows Tree Pittsburgh to improve outreach to cemeteries across the city and gain support from their managers. Currently, Allegheny and Union Dell cemeteries have completed tree inventories and management strategies, and Homewood Cemetery is working on an inventory.
Pittsburgh Urban Forest Review
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