OXFORD, Miss. – A recent grant from the Mississippi Forestry Commission will help replace trees lost at the University of Mississippi due to recent storms, including those damaged during the January ice storm.
Although 95% of trees survived the historic winter storm, many were damaged and may need to be replaced. The grant will help fund the planting of 29 new trees across the Ole Miss campus, said Sophie Kline, arborist and superintendent of the Department of Landscape Services.
“Tree care matters because, one, we want to make sure that everybody is safe,” she said. “If a tree is a liability, that’s a safety issue. But also, because people have always associated the Grove with its trees. This campus is not just a concrete slab; it’s an ecosystem.
“Think of people sitting in the shade. Think of the food the squirrels eat. Think of the aesthetic purposes, of oxygen. There are all these somewhat intangible services that trees provide that people don’t think of on a regular basis. That is a part of the culture here.”
The Landscape Services team commonly plants 300 or more trees – including trees that need to be replaced – each year, but that number will increase in the coming year, said Nathan Lazinsky, the department’s director.
“We’re going to be planning for next planting season,” he said. “Landscape Services plants about 300 trees a given year on campus. I hope to maybe double that number this coming year.”
The department provides year-round care for more than 6,500 trees on campus. It uses TreePlotter, a tree mapping service, to track and tag all the inventoried trees. The website is open to the public, meaning fans of the Grove, Circle or campus in general can keep track of their favorite trees from afar or take a walking tree tour while on campus.
Keeping trees thriving in urban areas can be difficult. All year long, the department’s team can be found pruning, monitoring wind or storm damage, looking for insect infestations and – importantly – aerating the soil around trees.
The majority of even a vast tree’s roots are within 12 inches of the surface, and constant foot traffic – be it on game days or during finals week – compacts that soil, making it difficult for trees to grow. Compaction is one of the biggest threats to trees in high-traffic areas.
“Imagine someone stepping on your lungs over and over again,” Kline said. “That’s the best way I can describe it. It takes years for trees to decline that way, but we take a lot of steps to reduce compaction.”
Aerating the soil involves using an auger or air spade to poke holes in the top layer of ground and replace the dense, compacted earth with a larger aggregate soil.
“What that does is it creates room, not only for water to get into the soil, but for those roots to have a little bit of breathing room and movement,” she said. “It’s kind of like taking that foot off of the lung for a bit.”
Not all the trees being replaced suffered from compaction, however. Some of the new trees will replace those lost to storms or other types of damage, whereas a few will be used to “green screen” power cables or machinery from public view.
Most trees will be replaced with the same species, although in some instances a more finicky water oak may be replaced by a sturdier willow oak or a similar trade.
“Something we have to think about is not just the aesthetics, but the long-term health of the trees,” Kline said. “Because we’re planting for people that will be here when I’m long gone, we want to give them the best shot they can have.”
This material is based on work supported by the Mississippi Forestry Commission grant no. 23-DG-11083128-430-SAA1-25. The Mississippi Forestry Commission is funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.