- [Announcer] Funding for Georgia Outdoors has been made possible in part by The Imlay Foundation and from viewers like you.

(upbeat music) - The Atlanta BeltLine is unique in many ways, but there's one feature visitors could easily miss.

You see, at the same time the BeltLine was pouring concrete, Trees Atlanta was building a BeltLine Arboretum.

An arboretum is a collection of plants and trees designed to educate and provide a public display of beauty.

As Greg Levine with Trees Atlanta explains, the BeltLine Arboretum is unique because it's linear.

- So really, we're looking at the long-term of a 22 mile linear, long Arboretum, which is placed in the middle of the city, going through 45 neighborhoods, is very unusual arboretum.

it's usually arboretums aren't a space, not a linear trail that is so integrated into the city and the neighbors and the neighborhood, it's makes for a really unique opportunity for education and enjoyment for people.

- I tend to think of the arboretum as a series of pocket parks, Greg and I walked into an old-growth forest that is part of the arboretum.

It's just a few steps off the BeltLine.

So Greg, this is the old-growth forest, but it has not been restored.

What do you mean by that?

It looks okay to me.

- Well, so actually we've got a pretty good tree canopy here, but as you can see we have the English ivy all the way through and carpeting the ground and that ground layer.

And there are so many plants that can grow on the ground layer, like hundreds of ephemerals and perennials plants and shrubs, but the ivy acts as a carpet, and we call it the killer carpet because nothing can grow through it, nothing reseeds.

You get very little diversity on your ground layer.

But the trees have popped up here pretty well, and you can see a good tree canopy.

- And you have little signs telling people what they are.

- Yeah, this is a loblolly pine, is quite a big one, as you can see.

- Oh, it is.

- But you can also see a little bit of liriope, which isn't that invasive, but we have other things in here like honeysuckle and Chinese privet.

And so we haven't restored this area yet.

And one of the challenges on the BeltLine Arboretum is that you imagine 22 miles of trail, which means, and you have neighborhoods on that trail, you have 44 miles of edge.

So even when we remove English ivy, we've got to start getting neighbors to remove their English ivy so it doesn't continue to grow in the arboretum, and in these restored woodlands.

- We are on the west side of the BeltLine.

It is instant peace here, yet we're 10 minutes from the airport and two miles from downtown.

This is pretty cool.

We're walking through an old-growth forest right off the BeltLine.

- Yeah, this is about an acre or acre and a half I believe.

And this is a section we haven't been restoring, but there's a section just slightly down the way where you'll start to see we've successfully removed the inversives.

- As we approached the part of this forest that staff and volunteers cleared, the difference is amazing.

No ivy, but plants I've never seen before.

- So look at this little native of iris.

It's called Iris cristata, it's little native woodland iris.

- [Narrator] It's cute, I know you don't generally call plants cute, but it really is.

- It's actually almost adorable, isn't it?

- Yeah (laughs) - What is it?

three and a half inches.

But that plant you don't see it in the woods as much because it gets choked out, especially in urban woods, by English ivy.

- So this grows naturally?

- Yeah, but actually we planted it, but normally it grows naturally.

It is a Georgia native that we don't see that often.

- So where English ivy was carpeting the whole landscape, instead, there are now native plants growing that support pollinators and insects.

- So this is another native perennial, it's called Tiarella.

And it's a lovely little plant, you can see the pink blooms.

It balloons are about three to four weeks, but though this beautiful foliage is up pretty much the entire year, is almost an evergreen in a mild winter.

A great plant that could actually create clumps that are almost 12 inches wide.

Now, it's also next to the trillium here.

- Yeah, a trillium in bloom.

- A trillium in bloom, this is one of the many native trillium.

There are well over a dozen native trilliums in Georgia, I think it's really might be near 15 to 20, but it's a red flowering trillium.

Really wonderful to see it blooming because as we discussed earlier, it takes seven years for a trillium to go from seed to actually bloom for the first time.

- [Narrator] There is also a section of native azaleas that don't look anything like the ones in my backyard, the color is gorgeous.

And there are several varieties that bloom throughout the spring and summer.

- The beauty of the native azaleas versus some of your Asian ones is a blooming time can spread all the way from March to late July, versus most of the Asian ones are blooming, April and May.

- [Narrator] So you guys came in and planted all these things.

- [Greg] Yup.

- [Narrator] Wow.

- And to bring nature back to where it should be.

When it comes to the native azaleas too, they're a little more challenging, you can see what these pine logs, we actually built up the soil and added a lot of pine fines to increase the acidity of the soil and help with the drainage.

- The west trail is more laid back than the east side.

It runs through residential neighborhoods instead of past condominiums.

Here's a view of what the 22 mile BeltLine is expected to look like upon completion.

And all along the way will be arboretum pockets of native plants like this.

A bog full of pitcher plants and long leaf pines.

Still on the west side, I'm walking with Sam Carton, and this is his baby.

(upbeat music) A number of this older long leaf pines.

- Yes, ma'am.

Won't be too long.

- I just realized that there are pitcher plant here too.

- Oh yes, we have a two individual bogs.

One a little smaller right along the BeltLine.

And I guess that's kind of just to give you that ability of like walking on the boardwalk and being surrounded by it, sort of like if you were on a boardwalk down in south Georgia, I think that was the idea of that design.

And I think it works out really well.

- Pitcher plants are pretty, they have nasty way of dealing with insects.

- I think the fact that it's carnivorous is really what jumps out.

When you look up close, you can see inside maybe a little later in the year, you just see piles insects that fallen in, they'd gotten trapped, lure in by the nectar that the plant exudes around the lip.

A pile of other insects will get attracted to the nectar, they'll slip around because the substance around the lips of the pitcher plant is very slippery.

Towards the end of the summer, you see dozens and dozens of intersects just digging close in one pitcher, and that's really what I think is unique, and really a testament to the fact that these plants evolved in very low nutrient environments.

This was their evolution of learning how to deal with that, that's where they get their nutrients from.

- [Narrator] So they're basically eating bogs.

- Exactly, they definitely chose the violent path, but it works for them.

And that makes her a really interesting focal point to the landscape.

- [Narrator] The lips of pitcher are modified leaves that forms a pitfall.

Digestive fluid at the bottom means a slow death for the insects, but survival for the plants.

Come to think of it those lips look like an open mouth.

This arboretum has many features.

It was also labor intensive.

- Well, this is very early in the planning this, any perennial landscaping, the first few years, you know, you gotta be patient, it does take some time for it to fill out.

But with the bog guard, especially, it is definitely an ordeal, and anybody can grow it, but it's not necessarily something that I would recommend.

- [Narrator] So this is hard.

- It's a lot of irrigation, a lot of maintenance.

We have tons of peat that we brought in.

We have a plastic minor underneath, irrigation, it was a constant ordeal, lots of weeding, because we have sort of a miniature wetland, we don't used pesticides.

So it's a lot of intense and basic removal AKA weeding.

A really good example for people to be able to come and see these species in-person, but not necessarily something I'd recommend for your novice gardener.

- All of it behind a brewery and on the edge of the BeltLine.

But that's part of the mission for Trees Atlanta.

People sitting on the patio see the plants and want to know what they are.

A shout out to Best End Brewing, they donate the water for irrigation.

This also features long leaf pine trees which have a 100 year lifespan.

Like Sam said, this all takes patience.

(upbeat music) As we head to the east side of the BeltLine, it's obvious this is a faster moving trail.

People are riding bikes, walking while looking at their cell phones, and are sometimes oblivious to what they're walking past, like 33 Oaks.

We met up with Steve Sanchez, a guy who definitely knows his oak trees.

- Oaks are so critical to our southeastern environment.

In Georgia alone, we have 32 to 33 different species, and they're found in every environment, they're found in Upland rock out crops to bottom land swamps.

I don't think you could go into a forest anywhere in the state of Georgia and not find at least one species of oak.

Just in the Metro Atlanta area alone, we have about 18 different species of oaks.

And as far as a street tree, what we plant back in our urban environments, the main trees we plant back are oaks because of their tenacity, their toughness to the harsh urban conditions we have here.

- [Narrator] And this is sort of your way of getting people's attention?

- Getting people's attention, but also celebrating these oaks.

I said, we use them in most of our designs.

I'm a landscape architect and we use them in a lot of our urban designs, but strangely enough, we only use about three or four species.

So it's partly about educating people that there's also all of these other species in Georgia, many of which have potential for use in our environments.

It's by diversity, that we're going to make these urban environments survive over time, because sometimes diseases come through and wipe out an entire species.

Take for example the American chestnut, which is in the oak family, it was wiped out by a disease.

So let's say we use one species, right now the most popular species uses a willow oak, very tough tree.

It is to the piedmont, what live oak is to the coastal plain.

So if a disease was to come and wipe out every willow oak, we'd be in harsh conditions at that point.

- [Narrator] But will people really understand that these are all different kinds of oaks or will they just walk past the shiny sculptures?

- That's a very good question.

I think they look around, they see the sculpture, and I think the sculpture is what makes them stop and look.

If it was just a bank of trees here, I don't think they would observe it as much, because that is almost the entire BeltLine, it is an essence in arboretum.

But this is one concentrating on our oak.

So by having these sculptures here, we really feel we're gonna catch the people's attention.

And as these species grow up and as this area becomes more shaded, there'll probably be paths put in here so people can go up to each individual tree, and it will probably be a great place for education.

- From 33 Oaks to a stumpery, which probably has you stumped.

A peaceful place south on the east trail full of dead wood and flowers, Grace Manning, watches over this part of the arboretum.

So grace, I see a lot of tree roots and log weird stuff.

This is the stumpery.

What does that mean?

- So stupery is a garden that intentionally uses deadwood and logs and sticks, sort of to bring more depth into the natural landscape.

Forest really require a lot of deaths, so fallen trees, and stuff like that to decay and reenter the ecosystem.

So when they break down, they enhance the soil, and also the dead limbs really support a lot of wildlife.

So hundreds species of birds and mammals really require deadwood for their natural habitat.

- Yeah, I mean, once you get the hang of it, it's really kinda cool.

- It's really a horticultural oddity, but it was popularized sort of in the Victorian era, a lot of like ferns and natural growth were like the sort of like all the rage.

- [Narrator] It's easy to pass this by, but I found it to be one of the more peaceful pockets of the arboretum.

It's shaded with plenty of places to sit and people watch.

Stumperies are in gardens all across the world, deadwood in all its glory.

- So in north America alone, over 80 species of birds require deadwood and cavities for their nests.

And then we also have a lot of mammals.

So yes, possums and squirrels go in the little crevices and they can hide out there from predators, harsh weather.

- Like all of the Arboretum, there are signs identifying everything most of which I had never heard of.

This, what is this?

- So that's, itea, it's a native shrub, really good for wildlife, pollinators, you can see how many flowers are on it there.

- Like so many of the features, this one will take time to look as broken down as a stumpery ought to be, but as always, Trees Atlanta is patiently waiting for the decay.

So I mean, tress like this you guys save on purpose and we're sitting on logs and all of this is what you guys consider a garden?

- Yeah, so it kind of adds like a whimsical, like natural feel to it.

It's a little like swoop up and around, kids love to like climb on it and stuff like that, it really like engages children, they love to run along the little walls and stuff like that so it's really nice to see the community interacting with nature in a different way than they normally could in like a really urbanized city.

- And as the BeltLine construction continues, Trees Atlanta has to come up with new legs of the arboretum.

The BeltLine plans to, as it purchases new land in preparation for completion of the 22 mile trail to make its final loop.

As BeltLine's Meghan Injaychock explains, the relationship with Trees Atlanta is special.

- We'll go to, we have different conferences and meet different trail builders through a network called the Highline Network, actually.

And nobody really has ever accomplished what we've been able to do with a local nonprofit partner like Trees Atlanta.

So, really it's unique in that the arboretum exists, but it's also really unique that we have this local partnership that has already been very well-known throughout the city for planting trees for decades, and we were able to tap into that.

- Before the stumpery was developed, this piece of land was a dumping ground.

No pretty flowers, no wood, just construction debris and roofing tiles.

Now the price tag on this land is off the charts.

The fact that the BeltLine was wise enough to say, 'Let's save these pockets and put something in there."

- Versus develop a house.

I mean, we could have sold this house several times.

People have purchased all the time and because, you know, BeltLine and Jason Property is great to develop and live on.

- But instead you chose to.

- We kept it.

- You kept it, and let's Trees Atlanta develop it.

- Yeah, it was a hard sell at first to come to our CEO, and be like, "We wanna put a bunch of dead trees in one space."

(narrator laughs) And then we showed him some photos of other arboretums that have done similar exhibits.

And usually they're just like a temporary exhibit sometimes, and we were like, now, we wanna make this permanent.

- And when you're just sitting like this, I mean, you got a truck going by and you forget where right in the middle of a very urban area, but sitting here it doesn't feel like it.

- You don't feel like it all.

Yeah, in certain pockets of the BeltLine, most people think of the BeltLine and I think the east side trail and all the craziness around that, but here it's very quiet on the west side, there are pockets of activity.

- I asked Megan to brag a little bit.

The BeltLine and Arboretum are something Georgia can be proud of.

- We're the longest linear arboretum in the country.

Most arboretums that you would go to throughout the US and Canada and even over in Europe and other countries, it's really more of a park-like setting.

You're walking along this little trail, and they have educational signs everywhere, but ours is, you're usually out jogging or you're on your bike, or you're trying to get to the grocery store using the BeltLine, and you're walking through an Arboretum every day versus going to a destination like a botanical garden, or like a state arboretum, you get to experience it every day on the BeltLine.

- The mission is education, and everyone involved knew it would take a while for people on the path to figure out what the arboretum is.

This project is still a baby.

So as you're building on, Trees Atlanta is having to follow?

- Yes, so we will build out a trail, and through the whole design process, Trees Atlanta is in meetings, we're in site visits, we're going out and looking at trees to buy, we do a lot of tree shopping.

And the tree nurseries have kind of gotten to know us for asking for really strange species that not a lot of people would think.

So we really try to find unique trees and plant at least three or four of them along the way, instead of just doing your typical pines and oaks, which we do a lot of, we try to really punch it up with things that most people wouldn't expect us to have on a trail like this.

(soft music) - I met Michael Bamford at a spot totally different than the stumpery.

There are more than 150 native azaleas planted here.

They are actually part of the rhododendron family.

So what is the name of this one?

And it's an early bloomer, obviously.

- Yeah, this is the littlest sunrise.

So it's an Australian flower, it looks like it's a natural hybrid.

My understanding is that was collected just like this from the wild and who and when is always up for debate.

It's the person who actually named them with the society that gets to name the flower, and that is kind of how it gets into cultivation.

- So you are saying Tallulah rose as in Tallulah Gorge.

- Yes, so Tallulah sunrise as in Tallulah Gorge.

- [Narrator] Tallulah sunrise.

- [Bamford] And it's just such a great name.

It really kind of connotates what it is.

It's got that orange and yellow and that nice pink stem, and it kind of looks like a sunrise color.

- [Narrator] Yeah, it does.

- This is all going to turn into a solid hedge.

So in a few years, you're gonna come here and you're just going to see this big sea of orange, yellow and pink.

And it's just gonna be an amazing, as you kind of come up this connected trail up to the pathway.

- [Narrator] Native azaleas drop their leaves in the winter, but their blooms last a lot longer.

What we're used to seeing is called the evergreen azalea, and most of them came from Asia.

- But those evergreens have a very interesting history.

It wasn't until they actually threw them in the ground down here after they threw them out of the house as houseplants that people realized they could survive (laughs) And that made all the difference, and I think that's why azaleas took off in the south.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Native azaleas are Georgia's state wildflower, they bloom from March through August in a wide variety of colors.

Why do you think that we should know about these native azaleas?

- Because they're all over Georgia and then losing habitat.

And they lost a lot of habitat when Georgia was agricultural.

In fact, if you look, I would imagine, back when Georgia was a colony, that these are all over the woods.

But once Georgia started to become more agricultural, obviously you don't want azaleas in the middle of your farm plot.

So these were pushed into and kind of relegated into the ditches and different places.

And when you go to some of the old farms, you'll see a lot of these in ditches and different places.

And I think at first people thought that they only grew in ditches and they needed all that water.

- So these are beautiful, they're so different than the ones we were just looking at.

The red, what do you call them?

- These are the Oconee azalea or flammeum is the Latin.

So that's the species, and they pretty much known as Oconee azalea 'cause they were first found in Oconee county here in Georgia.

It actually has the red, yellow and a little bit of orange.

And it's on a nice ball.

- Like fringy.

Yeah, so it's on a ball truss.

So if you, and I can show you some in a little while, but there's a grouping of buds that kind of come out right at the tip of the new growth on a plant, and those buds will just pop all at once.

So you get what you call a ball truss, and the ball truss has, this particular one has one, two, three, five, so that has like eight.

- I see, each one of these is a flower?

- Is a flower.

- But it's closed in like a ball?

- And it looks like a ball.

It looks like a much bigger flower than it is, but it's really a bunch of flowers.

- This section will fill out and eventually the natives will take over this entire area.

Not far from here, I met Grace Manning again at Beech Tree Circle.

I knew nothing about Beech trees.

All these trees are planted in a circle.

This is so neat, it's like a fairy ring.

- Yes, so.

- I mean, so eventually this is just gonna be one big.

- One big circle of a lot taller, they'll get, beech trees.

- They are pretty trees, I didn't realize that, like just the trunk is all that gray, is so pretty.

And I didn't know the leaves turned copper.

I didn't know anything about these trees, but that's the point, that's what the arboretum is all about, right?

- Yeah, all about showing off different species and sort of helping to educate and having just this great, awesome public garden space where people can come and learn about different things and sort of immerse themselves in nature while also in the city.

- [Narrator] These are young trees.

I mean, you guys are really hoping to have a big circle.

- Yeah, so when they get a lot older, what they'll do is beech trees do grow really closely together naturally, and they create these little thickets.

So what will happen too, which is really interesting, is they have really thin bark.

And when the branches from other trees will like start rubbing together, it'll rub a little bit of their bark off and then they'll start fusing together.

So it will happen with their roots end up in their branches and the trunks.

So what will happen is like eventually when these get older, they'll start sort of fusing together and creating like one giant little like super tree, which is fascinating, because they can also send their nutrients to each other so they can help support each other.

- They are beautiful trees with gray bark and leaves with deep veins.

Those leaves will turn copper in the winter.

The trees are only about 10 years old, in 30 to 40 years, this will be like sitting under a huge leafy umbrella.

A Greek proverb says, "Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."

It seems to apply to the BeltLine Arboretum project, for all the plants and trees to mature, could take 50 years, especially since the project is ongoing.

It takes a lot of vision and research to plant things and know what the project will look like in 50 years, that's what Trees Atlanta is doing.

I'm Sharon Collins, we'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for Georgia Outdoors has been made possible in part by The Imlay Foundation and from viewers like you.

(upbeat music)