$5 tree is waiting for you | I saw it in Tucson

As I have posted before, Tucson Electric Power provides a selection of trees for their customers to plant in their home gardens. The good news is that you can get two $5 trees every year! So if you got trees in 2023 or earlier, you can order additional water-smart trees and shrubs now on their website. (You have to order through the TEP website — not at one of the local nurseries.)

Here are some of the trees available this year

Arizona Ash
Bubba
Bubba Jones
Joan Lionetti
Lacebark Elm
Native Mesquite
Pomegranate
Shoal Creek Vitex
Sweet Bubba

It may be wise to wait a couple more weeks to plant the trees. By then the soil will have cooled down somewhat. New plants do not like hot dirt!

On some random post a couple of years ago a skeptic wrote that he thought the trees planted as part of Mayor Romero’s Million Tree goal probably would not survive. Well, I have photos for him of trees planted in Conner Park in Midtown three or four years ago. Of the 20 trees planted only one has died. The remainder are growing vigorously to join the tall trees that line either side of this small neighborhood park facing onto Glenn Street.

Below are a few images of the shady east side of Conner Park where the children’s play area is. The photo at the top of this post is of the east side of the park.

And, below, the existing shade trees on the west side of the park. The new trees have been planted to encircle the large grassy area in the center, which I suspect is not used a lot. The trees will make that lawn friendlier with the additional shade. To visit the park you need to drive into the neighborhood and enter from Plummer Street in the back; there is a fence across the park on the side facing busy Glenn Street.

Updating news about the Navajo Wash tree massacre

In October 2023 several residents of the Hedrick Acres Neighborhood Association (HANA) took a chainsaw to the trees in the pocket park in Navajo Wash near Ft. Lowell and Mountain streets. You can read the post here. Their goal was the eliminate shelter for the homeless who stayed at the park who they claimed were driving down neighborhood property values. The officers of HANA were not authorized to cut down the trees. After it was done they even sued the city of Tucson for failing to remove homeless people from the Park. They lost their lawsuit. And homeless people continued to live in the few shade trees left in the Park.

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities could remove homeless people camping on public parks, streets, etc. and in Tucson, as well as thousands of other cities across the country, homeless people disappeared from public places, including Navajo Wash.

When I stopped by on Saturday, the park was ugly and empty. Even the few homeless who stayed there during this last year, were now gone. Only the ugliness of the tree stumps, below, remain. City Councilman Dahl said the park would be replanted with new trees this fall. I certainly hope that happens. Conner Park shows how pleasant and inviting a small city park can be. Perhaps one day Navajo Wash will be an attractive place again.