- TreesLouisville is experimenting with assisted tree migration by planting species native to the area but sourced from further south and west in its North American range, in an effort to help trees adapt to the rapid pace of current climate change.
LOUISVILLE — Nearly a foot of snow has melted. The deep freeze that sent temperatures across the region plummeting to below zero has warmed to a balmy 55 degrees on a sunny February day.
As Matt Thomas augers a three-foot-wide hole into the ground at a city park in the shadow of downtown, Mike Hayman lets out a small groan when the cork-screw turns up reddish-colored clay where one of a dozen oak trees from Arkansas is about to be planted.
“I’m sure they can handle our cold,” said Hayman, the special projects manager for TreesLouisville, a nonprofit that’s planted or given away for planting 25,000 trees since it launched a decade ago. “But will they do well in our clay soil?” With Louisville’s humidity in the summer, he said, “there’s also more risk of fungal disease.”…