News-Record.com

That 100 volunteers devoted a recent sunny autumn Saturday to hard labor - planting trees in Glenwood - shows Greensboro has matured like a tree when it comes to trees.

In the past, the city's relationship with timber has been conflicted. Residents loved the beauty of trees, but often, when a tree grew tall and beautiful - chop, chop. It came down to clear the way for a housing or commercial development or a street widening.

One of the worst removals came as the 1890s gave way to the 1900s. City fathers removed the elms from the street that was named for those very trees.

Back in 1839, when the city was still a village with bascially four streets - North and South and East and West - local leaders paid a black man known only as Gill $39 to plant elms along North and South streets.

That led to the renaming of the street.

As Greensboro grew into a city (a city charter was adopted in 1870), leaders and merchants lost interest in the elms along Elm, even though in places they formed a lovely canopy. The trees, people thought, gave the growing city a small town look.

Perhaps Southern Power Co., which evolved into Duke Power, had some influence in the decision to cut the trees. The company was putting up power poles along the main street. Tree limbs got in the way.

In recent years, the city has been restoring foliage to Elm Street - not elms because of the Dutch elm blight, but various other species.

Even so, in a recent news release from Greensboro Beautiful, Emilie Sandin, co-chair of the group's Urban Forestry Committee, said, "Since 1984, Greensboro has lost 18 percent of its tree cover."

Development and ice storms account mainly for the shade losses.

Two years ago, Greensboro Beautiful, the Green Industry Council (made up of landscapers, nursery owners and irrigation contactors) and the Guilford County Cooperative Extension service started the NeighborWoods program.

With the help of city urban forester Melissa Begley, the groups picks a neighborhood for a massive tree planting. The first, in 2004, was the Eastside Park Neighborhood, off O. Henry Boulevard.

For this year's chosen place, Glenwood, neighborhood residents, master gardeners from the county extension service, American Express employees and Girl Scouts planted 68 trees. They included nutall oaks, black gum, bald cypress, several kinds of cherries, red and Jane magnolia.

Neighborhoods that would like to be considered for next year's planting should contact Begley at 373-2150 for an application. The neighborhood will be named in June, with the planting taking place in November.