KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Planting For A Greener Tomorrow with Dustin Jacobson

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Well, hello, hello, hello. Today we have Dustin Jacobson, who is the city forester in Bloomington. Thank you so much for coming back, actually, right? Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on again. And the reason why I really wanted you back is because I started to see things that we had talked about in the, it was a year ago, actually, in June. We had talked about some of the changes happening in Bloomington, making it more beautiful. I always want to follow up, especially when I see things. come to fruition of actually what you had talked about. So thank you so much for your time. Yeah, absolutely. So we talk a little bit about your background. If we can kind of act like we've

never met, why you go ahead and tell me about your background, things like that, and how you've got to become a city forester. Yeah, well, I grew up in South Minneapolis, you know, so everybody kind of knows the Minneapolis Park System is one of the best in the country. I would say that kind of set me on a path a little bit to appreciate natural

spaces a little bit better and being able to recreate in them. I grew up in sort of north of the Minneapolis golf course 42nd and 21st. So.

Yeah, so I went to Minneapolis Roosevelt. I'm a Teddy. I was accepted to the U, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do exactly. Hadn't found urban forestry just yet. Then upon a little closer investigation, I said this sounds right up my alley. Being able to be outdoors, to deal with people on a regular basis. And I certainly have a passion for trees that's been able to carry over into my career now.

It's kind of an interesting passion. Are you an outdoorsman in general, or do you just like spaces, like you're an urban guy, continue to like pretty urban spaces? Yeah, I mean, I'm still a bit of a city kid, but I definitely enjoy getting out there. And, you know, just hiking, fishing, you know, being at the cabin, enjoying the downtime out in nature. So, yeah, it's been a big part of my growing up was, you know, hiking and biking, you know, back in the day when you could just ride your bike for miles and miles. And your parents didn't exactly know where you were. You just were out getting dirty.

And, you know, if you didn't come home with a mud strip up your back from riding your bike somewhere in the mud. you weren't doing it right. You weren't playing. You weren't actually doing it right. Yeah. Those are, this weekend I just happened to go, I was in Chicago and I was in Chicago, north Chicago, and all the trees, the leaves were out further than they are here. And it was just, it really makes a huge difference on the beauty of a city to have a lot of

trees. And I was in lakeside would be just north of downtown Chicago area. And it really made a huge difference. Sure. Well, I think we were all feeling a little worn out from this winter as well. I think we looked at naked trees for a little too long. Not having the snow cover really kind of accentuated that brownness. I think we were all just like waiting on the edge of our seats for the leaf out here to bring some green back to our lives. Right. It just seems like we're two or three days behind, but now everything seems to, there's a few that are still budding, but it's pretty much all leafy, now green and leafy now.

Yeah. Yeah. Now we've got a pretty good idea of what's, you know, how the trees are coming out of the winter and if we have any issues with them at this point. No, this isn't your area because it's nine mile, but I think it's Highland Gulf Course, but I just saw, I mean, it was just mowed down. just seems like they had so many trees to take out. There were quite a few trees in, of course, my neighborhood. There's the ones with all the big red dots on, which means that they're coming down soon, if not. Yeah. Yeah.

And that was all ashore. Yep. Yeah, it was unfortunate. I know that was a big task for them to take on. When three rivers took over management at Highland over there, they took some pretty quick steps to try. to kind of stage some of the removals. They knew it was going to be a big, a big loss to the area, though. Just obviously that amount of canopy loss kind of changes the view quite a bit. So, but I was excited that, you know, to see, you know, that they are out there doing replantings and, you know, putting some back in there too. So it wasn't, it wasn't just to clear it all out to make easier,

for everybody. It was it was trees that needed to go because they'd be they'd be a mess as the emmone ash border. Yeah, they were pretty shaggy. A lot of them looked pretty shaggy that came out. So I was like, okay, I get what they're doing right now. So, but it was intense how much was taken out. Yeah. There were a whole piles of logs there when I would go when I would go, um, go by that area. Well, and one of the things I never really realized. too or thought about in the past was just, you know, how difficult it is with with golf course management to do it. Uh, because any of that work really has to be done in the wintertime because those of us here, I mean, we're, we're itching to get on the golf course as soon as, uh, you know,

it's past freezing. And then most places are staying open until they absolutely can't in the fall. So you're looking at, you know, from sunrise to sunset, most golf courses, it's pretty tough to do that scale of, you know, tree removals. That would be a lot of equipment and management around usage. They started in November. Yeah, you're right. It was all during the winter. Yeah, good job. They were quick about it.

Yeah. But now is golf season. So yeah. So now there's I'm sure there's a few out there that will be a little bit shaggy looking until this next winter when we can kind of get the last of them. That goes for Dwan as well. So there's a lot that came out at Dwan that we did over the winter. And, you know, unfortunately, there's a few that that we'll have to put on the list for once things slow back down out there. Oh, well, right now I think everybody just really wants as much summer as possible. Yeah. Just be outside, be outside, be outside. That's it. And we appreciate the trees when we get to do that.

So there you go. What are some of the things that you've done in Bloomington? Do you have any idea, like the numbers of trees that you've taken out for ash borer and then how many you've replanted, stuff like that? Yeah. So we did come up with, let me see if I can find. I know planting last year we've planted in the neighborhood of 260 trees throughout the park system. Many people don't realize, too, that we do replant in the parks, probably at a higher rate than we do through the rest of the city.

We don't replant in boulevards. There's actually ordinance against planting in the boulevard. So those removals for the longest time have been some of those have been offset by what we've been able to plant in the parks to try to manage some of that, those numbers for the positive. But it's a bit of a deficit now. I think we're just shy somewhere between like 60 and 80 trees or something like that between what's come out of parks and what's gone back. But those park trees, that's also considering there's ones that, you know, we remove out of the woods, out of the forest that, you know, for disease management, but don't necessarily lend themselves to easy replanting areas. You know, mode and maintained areas, that's kind of our priority for replanting, both for maintenance and to get in and help them establish watering-wise. So with not putting them in the boulevards, is it just because it could potentially be dangerous or?

It's mostly it's a lot of just infrastructure concerns. You know, obviously there are cities that do that and manage around, you know, curb, curbs being popped up, sidewalks, heaving, you know, when there's, yep, drainage, whenever there's like utility work. Obviously, I'm assuming you're, you've probably noticed out there a lot of the utility work that's going on with those fiber optics going in. So it's kind of in a lot of people's front yards.

And it's kind of one of those things that's, it's easier done with that right of way area that's open. That's interesting because we've been selling houses in Minneapolis. proper, South Minneapolis, I think we've had two or three houses now that we've had so many problems with trees that either have died and they've done the stump removal where they drill in, and that messes with pipes all the time. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's the downside trade-off of trees. You know, hopefully we can put them into spaces where they, you know, have a little bit more room

where the roots can spread kind of without any sort of trouble pushing up curbing, sidewalks, stairs, utilities. And I think that's kind of where we're looking to, which is just like

to put trees where it makes sense in spots that it's not too tiny. That usually, let's face it, they're 100-year-old neighborhoods. I'd rather enjoy a tree for 100 years and be worried about a pipe breaking than the other options that we would have at this time.

Well, a common misnomer or two a lot of times is trees get the blame for sewer damage. And I'm certainly was not immune to that. I've had to have my sewer redone. But most people don't realize that the tree is just taking advantage of what's already leaking. So that little crack in your... your sewer ends up kind of advertising to the tree. This is a good spot to grow. So they just exploit it.

And the best thing you can do is, you know, just keep a well-maintained sewer line. And, you know, once it's, once it's done and the sewer line's repaired, then that's not really an issue for that route going back in there. So one of the areas that you, we talked about last time you had a lot of good information of what you had done to make kind of a tree ecosystem, is that the right word, to make it look better for different areas.

And one of the areas that I think we've really, you drilled down on was St. Vonneventure. Yeah. Yeah, St. Bonaventure was kind of a fun spot because it was unfortunately had a big loss of ash trees. and then whoever planted it way back when just went real heavy into green ash. And so we were able to stage it a little bit, but it was basically within two years, every tree around those playing fields had to be removed. So it was a full-scale replanting. And that was just a really good place to sort of showcase just how many different.

varieties of trees that we can put in, you know, to be not planting all the same one species in the same area. So as those trees grow, develop in the years to come, if there's some type of pest or problem that we don't know about right now, you know, the losses are that much more minimized. You know, we lose one or two of whatever tree that it's, it's, it's, inflicting it on, but the rest of it can go on. And the park won't change quite as dramatically. Yeah. That diversity made a big difference. And this is also true. Would you say, I remember I know I'm kind of bouncing around, but we tend to have Kentucky bluegrass all over our yards.

What is a different? Well, there's a lot you told on the last one. I guess, you know, Why don't you just go ahead and talk about a better way to plant gardens? Diversity in trees that's been made clear. What else are some of the other things? Yeah. Well, basically what I always try to mention is to look into what your natural options are. What are some landscaping things that you could do to basically just encourage some of the native plantings, you know, wildflowers, you know, you know, be safe environment so pollinators can use.

You know, I always say try to shrink how much you have to mow. You know, I'm pretty excited about the plans that we have currently out for Bryant, which is getting redone over the next couple of years, and we're going to go from a whole lot of mowing, double-digit acres of mowing at Bryant Park to, I think the number is somewhere around three acres. So just, I mean, it's a no-brainer when you think of the amount of inputs, gasoline work, you know, just the amount of time cutting that grass, you know, and it's Kentucky blue grass. It's not a native, which is why we have to fertilize it, why we have to water it.

it, why we have to keep it weeded. You know, our native stuff is, there's a reason why it's native because it's meant to grow here just with rainwater and no input. So the things that we can do like that make all the difference, I think, for one for our environment, but yeah, I mean. What would be a nice grass for this part of the country? Well, I think the thing, I mean, I'm not. the best expert on that. But I would say that there's a lot of me. Yeah, well, turf isn't my super strong suit, but there's a lot of fescuses out there that are, you know, more northern climate

adapted. So there's a lot of different varieties that are bred actually by the University of Minnesota for Minnesota climate, both to be low maintenance and low input. So I definitely recommend going to the U of M extension for for some of that info. But you know, the other thing is, you know, just other ground covers. You know, it doesn't necessarily have to be grass depending on your area. There's all kinds of low-growing herbaceous materials out there, like creeping time and stuff that could be used. and it's beneficial to everybody. It'll put up with a little bit of salt and it'll flower and never really gets all that tall.

So you don't have to continuously mow it like we're currently in with all this rain. We're in mowing mode right now. Yeah, it's, I mean, once a week almost isn't enough with what the rain we're getting right now is. Is there anything else you think that would be? be really helpful for Bloomington, Bloomington residents that they could probably do more or less of. I think that changing out our ground cover will help a ton because we do want to water it less, although Minnesota, it has plenty of rain. I mean, things grow up here, obviously. Yep, yep. We're definitely, it's kind of one of those funny statistical things where,

we're getting more rainfall or more moisture. It's just not always at the time that we want it to be. So sometimes we have to be a little flexible on when we're expecting it. I would say one of the big things that I wanted to touch on just talking is, obviously everybody's kind of dealing with Emerald Ashbor and to just go back to, you know, on maintaining the trees on your property. You know, the big thing that we struggle with now is there's so many ash trees on private property that have emerald ash borer that are in the process of dying, parks falling

off. And to kind of remind people that it's not entirely up to the city to come by, come by and tell you to remove that tree. You know, we do the best we can here, but quite frankly, it's kind of like, you know, if everybody just sits back and lets the tree die on their property, it puts us all in kind of a rough, rough position. So whatever people can do to, you know, if it's maintaining the ash tree with injections to keep it healthy with an insecticide, to just making plans for removal and replanting so that eventually you'll have a replacement tree for that loss. And plus your interest to let it die on your property, and if it falls in either direction,

I don't know how good insurance is going to be about helping you out on that one. Right. Yeah, I can't imagine, you know, if you know about a tree that's dead on your property, that's leaning over your neighbors' shed or garage or house. You know, it's certainly it's your tree and your liability. So I'm not sure what, yeah, where insurance falls on that if they kind of point their finger at you or certainly if you're aware of the situation. You know, it's kind of one of those joys of homeownerships. I say that it's not fun to spend.

money on things like sewer repair or tree removal, but it does happen and those things need to be taken care of. I agree. Well, thank you. One of the pictures we assistance program. Yeah. Yeah, the Hennepin County is actually coming along with it. They were awarded a federal grant to help homeowners with, removal and replanting of ash trees. The best thing to do is to go onto the Henbut County Forestry website. They do have some, like a fact page, basically to get some background info on it. I believe the applications for the program will open kind of early June. So it's once you meet the needs income level, then they would basically be able to send out a head of a county inspector to kind of start the ball rolling for removal using their contractor and to get into that program.

But it certainly is, it's a good thing to finally have in place for those that need some assistance and getting those trees down. This is, I think, I don't know if they can see it. I don't have a little arrow. I don't think that it sees on the system. But there's a tree with a white wrap around the base of it. And those seem to be, aren't those the replacement trees that Bloomington has all over the city? Yeah. So this is, and I can even tell you the park just from the little clip which one that's at.

But yeah, there's been multiple tree plantings around. We do now have more of the white guards on some of the more recent ones. got a big shipment of pre-made tree guards. So most of the ones planted in the last two years, we'll have those on it. This is at South Glen. Yep. In my neighborhood.

Yep. Some of these and even that crab apple kind of in the foreground was planted. That was probably about eight years ago, seven, eight years ago. So we've kind of been able to. to stage some of the plantings so we have a mix of different species and size classes as we've gone but another big one to look at that we did last year was South Wood excuse me Southwood had a pretty big plant team much like St. Bonaventure did what's the cross streets for South Southwood I know this but I don't

remember where they were putting me on the spot I guess I could tear. Yeah, so Terrace Wood is on the south. Okay. What would that be? That'd be like 112th-ish. Okay.

So right in that. Oh, pickleball courts right there. Yeah, essentially between Quinn and Little. Mm-hmm. Hopefully nobody records this podcast and comes back at me if I'm wrong. They should be able.

Yeah, and South Glen Park is a nice one. There's some nice tennis courts and playground there. It's been one of those spots where it's had its pretty good losses of ash trees over the years. Nice greenways. It has a lot of greenway in it. So that's very pretty. But I can see where it left for a while. Plus, we had ice rinks there.

Then the ice rinks aren't there anymore. But like I said, that's. turning into a soccer field now. People are soccer on that field more and then it's a t-ball diamond. Yep, yep. Yep. So yeah, it definitely gets used. Yep, absolutely. Yeah. So that's the tough part to when planting trees is always finding spots where we can get them, where they're not going to totally interfere with something else. You know, I always kind of get concerns about sledding hills and and all sorts of stuff. So we try to manage for that.

You know, obviously some of those sites were like, you know, hopefully we can, if they're sledding, the trees will be at the top of the hill and you can kind of swerve out of the way or start out of the way of it in the first place. So we gotta get the trees back out there somehow. Yeah, yeah, that it is helping. And the more I get involved with,

I've gotten more and more involved with Bloomington as I've done this podcast, which is interesting. I'm very impressed. I think that everybody's working really hard. They've been very organized as I've worked with different people at Bloomington for different things. And, of course, you know, I'm heavily involved with real estate. So, you know, as a resident and also dealing with people selling their houses all the time, I've really been happy with it with our trees and our parks, really, pretty parks. Yeah. Well, and like I said, I mean, I feel like, you know, working with park and recreation,

you know, we've just, we've started to make some big, some big leaps and changes to rejuvenate our parks. And I think it's going to start to show here, you know, as we really get into this, you know, new era where we're kind of trying to right size, you know, the uses and newer demands of park users. You know, things have changed where people want more natural areas and different opportunities at the parks, some different sports that traditionally haven't been set up at parks and set them up for that. but just always kind of looking to give the public what they need best for a good community park. And a little bit off the subject, is there anything that you guys need to do like down a nine-mile creek, some of those different areas for like fire prevention, anything like that?

Or is it? Well, yeah, so nine-mile creek is a, yeah, so nine-mile creek is a big project that's, there's a lot of restoration. excuse me, a lot of restoration work going on down there. We've kind of started on a few portions. The big thing that we do is trying to clear out some of the species that make it difficult for the native plant communities to survive in there. And we've had a little bit of pushback, I think, just from people that maybe, you know, don't think that we're, you know, looking. out for the best or that we're trying to change it. Really what we're trying to do is to improve that to get that oak regeneration in some of that areas and to restore it back to what that

nine-mile creek Central Park area would have been traditionally. Some of those native plant communities, you know, getting the buckthorn out of there. And unfortunately, yeah, And unfortunately, a big part of that, too, you know, kind of aside from the project is that there are a lot of green ash and black ash in that sort of area that kind of low spots have a little more black ash or common to a swampy areas. And those are not immune to emerald ash borer. So now what we're dealing with is there's a lot of dead ash trees down there that will need to come out. But hopefully what that does is that creates more space where we can plant in some of those more native species. You know, one of the ones I'm hoping to get better established in there would be things like Shagbark Hickory. Some of the things in the Hickory family that would grow a little bit better in that.

more moist environment that tends to be a little bit a little more shaded but then in the fuller more sunny areas we can actually get some some burr oak regeneration that's that's going to be key to some those I like the acorn yeah I like those days yeah I think they're very pretty you find you find you find the fuzzy cap that's here that's your burr oak okay well thank you so much this has been very very informative. Again, I love seeing all the changes and it must be satisfying for you also to see some of it start generating. Like I said, it's fun to have been at this point in the city's development. You know, it's unfortunate to have to go through the tough times of losing the trees, but on the plus side, I'm now able to watch all these trees that we've been planting over the last 10, 11 years.

you know, start to mature and hopefully that's my, that's my thing as I retire in 20 years or whatever, that we'll have a pretty good amount of forested parks when I leave to our next generations. There you go. Well, thank you, Dustin. It's been really a pleasure and feel free. I think we just had your email address float through here. So it's okay for anybody to reach out to you, start asking you questions, maybe get more educated to trees, like you said, brown coverage in your gardens and your lawn. So as you can see below, it's D Jacobson at BloomingtonMN.gov. You don't say MN afterward. You're going to get Bloomington, Indiana, I think. Yeah, that's a very important distinction. But and also, too, I'll just put in a little plug to to also check the city's

website for our project details and stuff. So we're always putting things on there for what our current natural resource projects are. And obviously the Nine Mile Creek project will be coming up. So that's always going to be a source for more up-to-date information as well. So just in case people are, you know, want more filled in details kind of outside of just the forestry realm. That's a good spot to go.

And there's also monies available if they do need to have ash borer removed from their personal property. Is that correct? Hennepin County. Hennepin County. So we'll just make sure that that's the, so the Bloomington, we do not have those funds for that, but Hennepin County will. So the Hennepin County Forestry page will be the spot to find the info on that. Very good. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. If you know anybody, whoever wants to buy or sell real estate, I would love to be their realtor. So I thought I'd do a quick shout out for the Flamingo Group. And we are realtors that sell the most residential real estate in Bloomington, Minnesota. And we'd love to be your realtor of choice. Feel free to reach out and call on us because it will be a flocking good time. Thanks again, Dustin.

It was a privilege. I appreciate your time and your energy. You're welcome. Thank you.