The Davey Resource Group has been building with trees for more than a decade, but now they’ve been recognized for it.
The group was one of only 10 recipients of the national “Building with Trees” awards announced this year by the Arbor Day Foundation.
Pulte Homes of Ohio developed the winning project, a residential community called the Eagles Club at Quail Hollow. Davey was hired to map trees and provide tree preservation consulting. Karen Wise, manager of Natural Resource Consulting for the Resource Group, says the location of this residential community made the project a bit complex.
“Because the community was being constructed next to a golf course, it was very important that we maintained the ecological integrity of the woodlands between the new homes and the golf course,” she said. “We also worked to keep the amount of tree clearing to a minimum.”
As part of the project, Ken Christensen, Davey biologist/certified arborist, worked with Cawrse and Associates, landscape architects and land planners, to design an environmentally sensitive community master plan around the trees. Christensen then worked with the tree-clearing contractor to minimize tree clearing during construction and maximize the wooded buffer between the homes and the golf course. To do so, Christensen developed a tree preservation plan to ensure their survival during construction. This was followed by several site visits during construction to monitor success.
These extra steps taken by Davey, Pulte and Cawrse and Associates helped to secure this award, which was presented in late September. The project won in the “residential: 101 to 500 lots” category and was judged based on its creativity in protecting and planting trees, commitment to tree protection, use of inventoried information to preserve trees and communication and adherence to tree protection goals.
“Our working relationship with Pulte Homes has been nothing but positive, and to have our work win an award is very fulfilling,” Wise noted. “The project team – Ken Christensen, Rob Izer and Craig Cawrse – worked tirelessly to not just plan tree preservation but to actually implement it with success.”
In other news, the Davey Tree Expert Co. was No. 15 on the employee ownership Top 100 list, compiled by the National Center for Employee Ownership.
Ranked by number of employees, the list is headed by The Publix Supermarkets chain, headquartered in Lakeland, Fla., which has 121,000 employees. Davey is the only tree care company on the list.
The author is managing editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine and can be reached at nwisniewski@lawnandlandscape.com.