Coleman Memorial Park unveils push for arboretum accreditation

The Friends of Coleman Memorial Park held a ceremony Tuesday morning to unveil the park’s tree inventory project, the first step toward the goal of attaining Level II Arboretum Accreditation for the park.

The park hired Jon Schach of Good’s Tree and Lawn Care to tag trees throughout the park, starting with the inside of the park’s Bashore Drive loop. So far, he has catalogued 794 trees of 81 species. This includes a Bee Bee tree, which Schach said is the only one he has seen in the county, and other trees that are rare in Pennsylvania.

Park Grounds & Ecology chairperson Lydya Renninger said she expects the inventory project to have no difficulty reaching 100 catalogued species, the requirement for Level II Arboretum status.

“We believe it’s time that we start to not only recognize the asset that we have right here in our own backyard, but to act,” said Renninger. “We hope to not just inform, but also excite and ignite our community to get involved to help protect and to fall in love with the trees.”

If obtained, Renninger said, recognition as an arboretum will both attract visitors to the park and open up new avenues for grant funding for the park’s upkeep. Though the park’s grounds team cares for the park, she described a “growing maintenance backlog caused by aging trees, pests, disease, and drought stress.”

During the ceremony, Lebanon city mayor Sherry Capello praised efforts by both the park’s board of trustees and the Friends of Coleman Memorial Park. She emphasized the combination of the park’s forestation with activities for families, like the playground, courts, and the soon-to-open dog park.

“[DCNR] had indicated that this is one of the most beautiful natural parks in the state,” said Capello, referencing a variety of funding sources that having been directed toward Coleman Memorial Park’s upkeep. “Quite an investment has been made in this park, and it is exciting to me that the trustees and the friends are focusing their effort on the trees.”

A handout noted that 86% of the trees inventoried so far are in excellent condition, but 9.6% – or 76 trees – are recommended for removal (only 11 with high priority, Renninger said). For others, in particular rare trees, Schach has recommended treatment and preservation measures.

Moving forward, Renninger said, the park’s stewards are looking to remove trees that are a danger to safety, preserve rare trees that are at risk, and plant replacement trees to “support a long, strong canopy for years to come.”

“Both managing groups of the park, the trustees and the friends, envision a plan moving forward with intentional improvements to better steward our trees,” said Renninger. “The inventory project and management plan are our first steps toward gaining the notable achievement of arboretum status, and with the help of our community, we want to achieve this goal and protect the ecological standards that our trees deserve, and our community deserves.”

The survey found that the majority of trees inventoried so far (73%) are oaks, maples, and black tupelo, though there are multiple species of oaks and maples. The full tree inventory can be viewed at the Coleman Memorial Park website.

Schach explained during a walk through the loop that, once completed, the inventory will allow for a publicly accessible digital map of the park containing information about each tree. He said this will allow visitors to the park to more easily identify trees, especially those that are not native to Pennsylvania.

Coleman Memorial Park is the former site of the Coleman mansions. Though the last mansion, which belonged to George Dawson and Deborah Brown Coleman, was demolished in 1961, its mark remains in the rare trees growing near remnants of the mansion’s foundation. Renninger attributed this biodiversity in part to Deborah, who maintained extensive gardens during her life.

This area contains trees including a Canadian hemlock, an American elm, a Japanese katsura, and a ginkgo tree. Schach explained that the latter is a “living fossil,” the only surviving species of a tree type thought to be extinct until it discovery in China in 1691, which has since been widely distributed.

During Tuesday’s ceremony, county commissioner Jo Ellen Litz and Dan Bost, representing state Senator Chris Gebhard, both spoke in favor of the project.

“I can tell you, I’ve lived in Lebanon County all my life, and in my 51 years here, this is the best direction I’ve ever seen this park go in,” said Bost. “The board that is currently serving is doing everything that needs to be done to push this park forward.”