COMMUNITY GREENING

The Conservancy continued working with numerous community and philanthropic partners to advance various tree and garden projects across the region in 2022, all helping to make Western Pennsylvania’s communities greener and healthier. Some of the 2022 progress included 1,107 new street and park trees planted, 130 gardens installed in cities and towns, and bursts of pink along downtown riverfronts and trails from Pittsburgh Redbud Project trees.

“The impetus of this work started in the 1970s and, each year since then, we continued assessing how our work can make more of a community impact,” says Cynthia Carrow, vice president of government and community relations for the Conservancy.

“Over the last 15 years, however, our work has greatly evolved and we now offer an even more robust set of greening opportunities. We continue to prioritize opportunities for everyone to participate in and benefit from regional greening efforts.”

She says those opportunities and priorities include tree and native pollinator plantings to help offset habitat decline, bioswales and rain gardens for stormwater mitigation, ecological assessments coupled with greening recommendations, transforming asphalt and concrete school grounds to greenspaces and outside learning areas, and bringing nature to downtown business districts with tree plantings and flowering planters and baskets.

Cynthia explains this expansion prompted us to “rethink the name of our greening work to more closely align with current priorities and activities.” A new name, Community Greening (formerly known as Community Gardens and Greenspace), has emerged.

Beautiful, functional and educational describes the rain and pollinator garden that pops with color from native perennials and trees at the corner of Lincoln and Frankstown avenues in Pittsburgh’s Larimer community.

The rain garden, which was installed in 2020, expands the environmental benefits of the Conservancy’s existing community flower garden that has been a community staple at the intersection since 1995. Due to COVID-19 protocols, the ribbon-cutting ceremony took place in 2022.

The garden is adjacent to Pittsburgh Public School’s Lincoln PreK-5, whose students helped to select the flowers and design the garden. During fall 2022, Lincoln teachers and upper grade students worked with graduate students from Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center to develop augmented reality (AR) experiences that featured simulated demonstrations of the rain garden ecosystem.

“Nature-based learning fosters so many skills, including mindful observation and design-based thinking, that reinforce and enliven the teaching and learning happening in our schools,” says Danielle Forchette, the Conservancy’s conservation education coordinator. “So, we’re pleased to work with students, teachers, staff and partners to create such fun and interactive learning opportunities in their community gardens.”

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald attended the ribbon cutting and thanked the Conservancy for its longstanding commitment to community greening and innovations to address stormwater capture.

“This project is exciting because it brings so many things together that we care about in this community and provides an opportunity for our youth to learn about green infrastructure,” he adds.

In downtown Pittsburgh at Grant Street and First Avenue, pollinators have safe nesting habitat full of nectar, pollen and berries as a result of recently planted native trees, herbs, grasses and shrubs. And pollinator-friendly native perennial flowers, including brown-eyed Susan, butterfly milkweed, purple coneflower and goldenrod are also rooted at this garden site.

In 2021 and 2022, Conservancy staff transitioned an existing community flower garden at the location to pollinator-welcoming habitat. Art DeMeo, senior director of community greenspace services, says the changeover to this type of habitat provides many environmental benefits in a busy urban setting.

“Pollinators are in decline due to increased pesticide use, decrease in natural habitats and increases in non-native invasive plants, so we’re strategically planting more pollinator-friendly plants in several community gardens around the region.”

In addition to Grant at First, other Conservancyowned community gardens, such as at Centre and Herron avenues in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, do triple duty as native pollinator habitat, a community garden and a bioswale that is mitigating stormwater.

Students from Pittsburgh Public School’s Lincoln PreK-5 engage in nature-based play in this functional rain garden and outdoor classroom in Pittsburgh’s Larimer community.

82O street and community trees planted

2.69 acres of perennial beds that help pollinators thrive 77,648 annuals, 1,787 perennials planted at 13O community garden plants

Approximately 2,ooo individual daffodil bulbs given away to hundreds of community members