There is plenty to see at Discovery Park, and now you can learn more about the trees!

Arborist Tours: they will host two Arborist Tours, one on Friday, Feb. 23 and one on Monday, Feb. 26. The tours will start at the Discovery Park Environmental Learning Center parking lot at 12 noon. They expect the tour will take one hour. The tour will provide the opportunity for community members to walk through the park and learn more about our preventative maintenance efforts with one of our certified arborists.

Seattle Parks and Recreation’s Preventative Tree Maintenance crew will begin preventative tree work at Discovery Park in February 2018. This work is part of their Preventative Tree Maintenance Program, which aims to reduce risk related to trees and improve the long-term health of trees throughout our parks system.

The work at Discovery Park will include trees at Discovery Park, Discovery Park Boulevard and Daybreak Star. This work will address trees that were surveyed by a contractor in the summer of 2016. Trees that have been inventoried and have some recommendation of work are indicated by blue tags. The recommended work ranges from a more thorough inspection to tree pruning or full tree removal.

All trees included in this inventory are within a 50′ buffer zone of high-use areas, including areas bordering streets, parking lots, education centers, paved trails, and play areas and playgrounds. Crews will not be working in natural areas of the park unless the natural area borders one of these high-use areas.

Discovery Park will remain open during this work; trail detours and periodic closures of specific areas may occur. Work will begin along Emerson St. and continue counterclockwise to the entrance of the park. In total, Seattle Parks and Recreation will address 166 trees.

The long-term health of both natural areas and wildlife are important to the department. When staff consider the location to be appropriate, wildlife habitat snags, decayed wood, and sometimes whole dead trees will be retained in our natural area system. Seattle Parks and Recreation staff is working closely with the Green Seattle Partnership on this project.

The Seattle Park District provides more than $400,000 annually for the Preventative Tree Maintenance Program.

Click here for more information and updates about the project. . If you have questions about the project, please contact Chris Rippey at Christopher.Rippey@seattle.gov or 206-386-1688.