About Arboretum

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Shelby Avenue Arboretum located in Nashville, Tennessee is a two-mile arboretum located in the East Nashville neighborhood. Embedded in an urban neighborhood, this project seeks to connect residents with the natural world around them in their everyday urban experience. On the drive to and from home, this project will light up the drive, a walk down Shelby Avenue on a hot summer day, these trees will provide a buffer and shade from harshness of the city’s concrete and asphalt.

As of 2023, the project hosts over 680 trees along a two-mile stretch of Shel­by Avenue and par­tial­ly into Shel­by Park near the cave spring area. The full vision and plan for the project is over 1,000 trees plant­ed, a dynam­ic web­site for every tree species in the project, and phys­i­cal sig­nage for each tree species. The project has orga­nized its tree plant­i­ngs to host mul­ti­ple infor­ma­tive seg­ments to help peo­ple con­nect with this project. To name some of these seg­ments, the fol­low­ing sec­tions have been plant­ed: Trees that Bloom, Maples from Around The World, Native Trees in Urban Spaces, Tough Trees for Tough Places, Large Canopy Trees, Cher­ry Blos­som Exhib­it, Red­bud Col­or Burst, Mil­i­tary Ser­vice Memo­r­i­al Trees, etc.

In March 2020, an F3 tor­na­do ripped through Nashville and Mid­dle Ten­nessee — East Nashville being one of the hard­est neigh­bor­hoods hit. This project’s time­line and impor­tance accel­er­at­ed as it became a sym­bol for restor­ing hope for a com­mu­ni­ty and city torn apart by a tor­na­do and forced to keep dis­tant due to the glob­al pan­dem­ic. This project runs almost in par­al­lel with the tornado’s path and is a tes­ta­ment to a community’s grit to restore itself in the face of any chal­lenge. It is a project that has con­nect­ed many Nashvil­lians and grows with a com­mu­ni­ty. As this project’s tree get estab­lished, they will pro­vide the com­mu­ni­ty more than just a sym­bol of hope, but also valu­able air and water puri­fy­ing ben­e­fits along a very busy cor­ri­dor of the community.

This project is fund­ed by pub­lic and pri­vate funds and many trees have been plant­ed by com­mu­ni­ty vol­un­teers. Pub­lic fund­ing sources include USDA, Ten­nessee Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture, and metro tree mit­i­ga­tion bank funds. Pri­vate fund­ing has come in big part from the Mar­tin & Bet­ty Brown fam­i­ly trust and the project is named in hon­or of their lega­cy and sup­port for trees in Nashville.

Farm-to-Yard Tree Sale

With tree experts, wholesale nurseries, and tree enthusiasts, Shelby Avenue Arboretum has an in-depth knowledge of what species of trees will not only thrive in Middle Tennessee but will also enhance its natural landscape and ecosystem. Visit the arboretum or learn more about how you can add one of our 680 tree species to your property.

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