Communication Builds Our Community
Communication Builds Our Community
Lake Wales' official Horticulturist Kevin Polk leads a team of parks employees who have been steadily beautifying the city with hundreds of new trees and thousands of shrubs.
The City of Lake Wales has earned the designation of Tree City USA, joining a list of more than 160 communities in Florida who have won that designation from the National Arbor Day Foundation.
"This is a prestigious honor for our city," city Horticulturist Kevin Polk said. Polk now leads a team of parks employees who are planting and maintaining hundreds of trees and thousands of shrubs across the city.
Lake Wales met all criteria to qualify for the designation by operating a tree advisory board, facilitating a tree care ordinance, maintaining a forestry program with an annual budget and observing Arbor Day annually.
"Our tree management program facilitated by staff and our partnerships within the community got us this recognition," City Manager James Slaton said. "It complements the work we're achieving in the historic core to become 'A City in a Garden'."
Notable landscape architecture in Lake Wales dates to the early 1900s surveying of the planned town site for Lake Wales with plans to become a 'garden city.' That design preserved the nearly two miles of lakefront parks and green spaces in the heart of the city.
Lake Wales City Manager James Slaton celebrated the achievement of the Tree City USA designation. He has been a steadfast supporter of the city's beautification efforts outlines in the Lake Wales Connected plans.
The plan was completed in the 1920s by famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. after Edward Bok encouraged him to extend his gardens at Bok's tower into the entire city.
The annual Olmsted Day festival, held in Lake Wailes Park, has marked Arbor Day each year, serving as an educational and entertainment event that draws citizens to learn more about the value of urban trees.
The Olmsted Day event, planned for March 29, has been held annually since the city's non-profit partner, Lake Wales Heritage, initiated an effort to plant streetscape trees along the guidelines of the city's original but uncompleted designs created by Olmsted.
Native trees, urban canopies and streetscapes are a big part of the City's award-winning downtown revitalization plan, Lake Wales Connected, with hundreds of trees currently being planted along miles of city streets. They are being planted by the City of Lake Wales, Lake Wales Heritage, as well as by private citizens.
The placement of scores of new trees in the downtown area has transformed once-barren stretches of street into extensions of the city's growing network of parks and trails.
The Arbor Day Foundation's Tree City USA program is operated in partnership with the National Association of State Foresters and the USDA Forest Service.
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