Andrew Hart, Director of Urban Forestry, Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, discusses tree care and watering after severe drought at the 2013 ACTrees Day.

1. Stepping in for Mother Nature:
When 'Nature's Call' Comes Up Short: KIB's Dance for Rain

2. Deadly Drought of 2012

3. Reaching out to valuable resources

4. Learning lessons from those who have gone before

5. “Take Action!”

6. KIB Project Database

7. All 27,000 trees planted over the past five years…

8. Allowed us to create maps of all our trees

9. Within two weeks, KIB was watering thousands of trees weekly

10. Projects from the past five years were targeted

11. Engaging KIB’s Youth Tree Team

12. And private contractors (farmers from southern Indiana)
and several other local landscape contractors

13. Along with KIB volunteers…
11,000 trees were watered each week for over two months!

14. KIB’s website informed people of need to water

15. Social media was engaged

16. Videos of how to water trees were created
using the ideas of other organizations

17. KIB Arborists featured on all major Indy news networks
talking about the drought

18. Mulch Madness program created
to help save water and trees

19. With cool props, like the Mulch o’Meter!

20. Hundreds of volunteers were engaged
to mulch over 6,000 trees

21. Including schools, faith based congregations,
service clubs, and tree lovers…

22. To Take Action!

23. To raise awareness and funds, KIB hosts
Draft for Draught

27. Lessons Learned
Learn from others!
Don’t start from scratch, find out what has
worked…
Prepare and have a Plan (KIB has now
developed a Drought Plan)
Be grateful if you have tracked your trees,
and if you haven’t…now is the time to start!

28. Andrew Hart
ahart@kibi.org