Columbus Municipal Nursery & Columbus Urban Forestry
6993 S. High St. ­ Lockbourne OH 43137

A government-supported nursery producing trees for city use. Jack Low, city arborist, explained the role of arborists in large metropolitan areas.

The following comments were written by Brad Stischok:

After completing our two day tour of many different businesses in the landscape field I felt that the Columbus Municipal Nursery and Urban Forestry was very interesting. One of the main reasons I enjoyed this place is because I have worked for the City of Columbus for the past seven years at a golf course. This is a very large operation that has grown tremendously in the last five years. I would have to say that it is a commercial type of nursery, but it grows all of the trees for public use. One thing that I found very interesting is that for the size of the nursery they only have two to three full time employees and there are a couple of part time seasonal workers. This really caught my attention because for the size of the nursery you would think they would have a staff of at least ten employees. One thing that Jack Low told us was how much land they are responsible for. The Columbus Municipal Nursery is responsible for thousands of acres in the Columbus area. Some of the areas that they take care of are Metro parks, Golf courses, and all of the streets and alleys around town. Their duty, in the forestry department, include trimming and pruning trees, picking up dead branches and trees, planting new trees, and making sure when they do plant the trees are the correct height. They have to make sure that trees are trimmed up around stop signs and lights in order to cover themselves for lawsuits. Jack gave a few examples of incidents that occurred in which someone was either killed or seriously injured due to a blinded sign or light. Both of the situations resulted in a lawsuit against the City of Columbus and they had to pay money for their mistakes.

Fig 1. Jack Low, Columbus Urban Forester provides an overview of arboriculture activities sponsored by the city. Mark Ricker, second from right, also presented an overview of the municipal nursery operations.

The area of this division that I really enjoyed was the nursery. They use the same type of production system that Ohio State used to use. The pot in pot system is a very good system, but it requires quite a bit of work. You have to keep moving the trees into bigger pots every year. If the upkeep is kept, the results look like it will be worth it. All of the trees that are grown in the nursery are going to be used all over the city of Columbus. They wait until they are of proper height and then they will take them out and plant them. The "street trees" are supposed to be around 14 foot tall for clearance purposes. I guess I was amazed at how big and clean the nursery was for being a division of the city! It was the cleanest nursery that we visited on our tour, in my opinion. I was also amazed at the variety of trees that are propagated. They had everything from maples to magnolias.

Fig. 2. The majority of trees produced at the municipal nursery are grown in the 'Pot-in-pot' system; most plant material is native to Ohio and propagated through seeds.

Over all I feel that this nursery doesn't get the credit that it deserves. I know that before visiting I didn't know it was that big and I did not know all of the duties they are responsible for. Hopefully more people can become aware of all they do and start to appreciate it.