Trees Lexington

Our July Tree of the Month is the native black cherry tree, Prunus serotina. Full post on our blog!

This black cherry (Prunus serotina) is off Wilson Downing Road, between Southern Middle School and Southern Elementary School, near the entrance to the city’s Meadowbrook Golf Course.

The deciduous species, also known as wild black cherry or rum cherry, can be found from southeastern Canada through the eastern United States to eastern Texas. There are disjunct populations in central Texas and in the mountains of the southwestern U.S., Mexico and Guatemala.

It’s a great tree for wildlife because its small fruit with a bitter-sweet flavor is eaten by a wide variety of birds, squirrels, deer, raccoon, opossum and black bears. It also is a host plant for the larva of more than 400 butterfly and moth species. The wood is highly valued for furniture, cabinets, paneling, professional and scientific instruments, handles, toys and cabinets.

It is related to the sweet cherry, sour cherry and Japanese flowering cherry and in the same genus (Prunus) as plum, peach and almond trees. It can grow in full sun to partial shade and will tolerate both alkaline and acidic soils and tolerates a wide range of moisture levels. It has dark green alternate leaves two to five inches long and two to three inches wide with white flowers appearing in May that are six-inch pendulous racemes.

Head to our blog to learn more about our native black cherry tree.

https://www.treeslexington.org/post/july-2026-black-cherry



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Love early mornings? Enjoy a good workout outdoors? We’ve got a way for you to check both of those boxes and help grow the shade of the future!

Join us this Friday for a Beat the Heat Mulching Party at Mary Todd Elementary!
551 Parkside Drive
7am - 9am

Come out and help us mulch 18 young trees!

-All tools provided
-Wear closed toe shoes & light clothing
-Bring a filled water bottle
-No facilities available on site

Register online:
www.treeslexington.org/volunteer

We’re out at the Back to School Bash at the Charles Young Center, and what a party for a Wednesday night! One of the best parts of what we do is making connections with community members. In the first 20 minutes we were here we were reunited with volunteers from our very first planting at William Wells Brown Elementary in 2023, and a student who remembered us from a tree planting at RISE: STEM Academy for Girls.

Mere steps outside our office door is an American persimmon tree and a Kentucky coffeetree. We love watching the fruit come on in the summer! Hopefully we’ll get to nibble some persimmons when they ripen. We definitely will not resist the urge to collect coffeetree pods!

Did you know that the BHG restaurants have a gift card program that gives 20% of your gift card purchase to nonprofits?

If you’re heading to Harry’s or Drake’s for Lexington Burger Week like our staff did on Wednesday, order an e-gift card through giveBHG.com and select Trees Lexington as the benefiting nonprofit! We’ll receive 20% of your gift card purchase total and put that right back into our tree planting, care, and education programs.



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Congratulations to mallard mama Mary Serviceberry on what we trust was a happy and healthy hatching of her ducklings at Mary Todd Elementary!

Upon further tree inspections yesterday, our wildlife loving intern Lauren also discovered a vacated nest in one of the catalpa trees we planted - not too long before getting more than an inch of rain dumped on her.

It doesn’t take long for the newly planted trees to make a difference in the world around them. What’s happening with your young trees?

This morning we met at Leestown Coffee House for our staff meeting and tried the Pine Citrus Latte featured for National Parks & Rec Month! A portion of proceeds from this super-de-duper-delicious drink will fund tree planting in Lexington parks this fall. We can’t wait to make it to our next stop for another fantastic featured item!

Check out our pinned post for details on the partnering businesses and the tasty ways they’ve created for you to help us plant more trees for a happier and cooler Lexington!

Lexington, KY Parks & Recreation

Last week, our staff attended a virtual awards reception for the 2026 Good Works Program grant awards. We’re TREE-mendously excited to announce that the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels have awarded Trees Lexington a $10,000 grant towards the purchase of our very first truck! Through the Kentucky Colonels’ Good Works Program, 316 Kentucky nonprofits were awarded $2.6 million to further their mission.

A huge and heartfelt THANK YOU to the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels and their trustees for providing Trees Lexington this incredible level of support. Having a truck will be a true game changer for our team, the trees under our care, and those we’ve yet to plant.

Our staff has been privileged to be a part of Foodchain and Seedleaf's Bluegrass Urban Farm Friends (BUFF) summer program, working with middle and high schoolers. Last week, we visited Floracliff Nature Sanctuary for a lovely day focused on pollinators, legacy trees (yes, including Woody C. Guthtree), and the Kentucky River Palisades landscape and ecology.



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