Wilmington officials offered an update Monday on efforts outlined in the city’s Urban Forestry Master Plan.

Adopted by city leaders in 2023, the plan aims to help protect and enhance trees growing inside Wilmington’s city limits. The plan identified 11 recommendations along with action items, which are in progress, Sally Thigpen, assistant director of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, told members of the Wilmington City Council on Monday.

The first recommendation was an inventory of all public trees in Wilmington. Trees inside the city’s 1945 corporate limits were inventoried as part of the initial planning process. Those trees make up roughly one-quarter of the estimated 40,000 trees in the city, Thigpen said, and the city is looking for grant funding to inventory the rest.

“As the No. 1 recommendation, this is our highest priority,” Thigpen said, “as it will set us up with the data that we need to manage this important asset, as well as identify all vacant tree planting sites and provide a street tree planting plan.”

The city is also waiting on new satellite imagery to update its urban tree canopy assessment, Thigpen said, which should take place in the next year. The most recent imagery from 2020 showed a decrease in the city’s tree canopy, dropping from 48% tree cover in 2016 to 41% in 2020.

As part of another recommendation, the city is working to strengthen partnerships to support implementation of the forestry plan. That includes establishing a memorandum of understanding with the Alliance for Cape Fear Trees and the city’s plans to appropriate tree mitigation funds to the organization to help with the planting and maintenance of young trees.

Staff members are also updating the city’s technical standards and specifications manual, which, Thigpen said, “is going to help us speak more clearly to planting, tree protection and species selection.”

Other goals include dedicating city staff to support urban forest operations and education, improving communication, collaboration and coordination among city departments and developing a strategy to manage wood waste. On May 30, the city hosted its first mulch giveaway program as a way to distribute excess mulch and wood chips from its urban forestry operations. Thigpen said city staff plan to hold the event regularly in the future.

Aaron Reese, the city’s arborist, discussed factors that impact the types of trees the city plants. First, they have to evaluate whether a certain species can grow in an urban setting.

“It’s a built environment, it’s concrete, it’s asphalt, it’s modified soils, everything that we build is not natural,” Reese said Monday. “Being able to plant native trees into an environment that is not natural for them is very difficult. Some can handle it; some just don’t.”

Other factors include the planting space available, whether there are overhead or underground utility lines in the area, the tree’s desired appearance or effect (whether it’s meant to provide shade, a windbreak or flowers, for example), nursery availability and the size of the tree once it reaches maturity.

Reese said city staffers plant a mix of native and non-native species. The city’s current planning contract includes 464 trees, with 47 species, varieties and cultivars, he said, with more than half being native species.

“Where we can use natives,” Reese said, “we’re doing our best to do so.”