SWT Design Partners with Mercy Hospital Joplin

Tiny trees bring hope of what is to come after the 2011 tornado devastation in Joplin Missouri. Colored plastic tags mark tree genus, orange was used for oak.

After a horrific tornado flattened the Joplin Missouri area the community is now in full swing to re-build, this includes Mercy Hospital, which will break ground this month. The re-building of the hospital is not just about the structure, but what surrounds it. Considering this, the hospital has partnered with an environmentally conscious landscape architect planning firm, SWT Design.

Although the hospital will not be completed until 2015, SWT Design has already begun its planning, including nurturing sapling natives from the new hospital location. Last December, representatives from SWT Design, Wickman's Gardens of Springfield, Kin-Kam Tree Farm of Aurora and the Missouri Department of Conservation met at the site of the new hospital to identify viable, native trees for transplantation.

Marcia Long, one of Mercy's neighbors at the new hospital site came up with the idea to transplant the trees to a different location while the hospital is being constructed. The tiny trees are now lined up across nearly two acres at Kin-Kam Tree Farm. Each tree has a colored flag to depict its genus: oak with orange; sassafras with green; hickory with yellow; pink for flowering trees such as dogwood and redbud; and purple for ''other'' canopy trees.

Certified arborist and owner of Wickman's Gardens, Glenn Kristek was in charge of the team that prepared the saplings for transplantation. Once ready, the saplings were mulched and transported to Kin-Kam Tree Farm. Several precautions were taken in the process of transplantation such as, hand digging the trees out, removing branches with corresponding roots that had been lost and planting the saplings in the same soil depth that they were originally found in nature.

''The soil line was visible on the bark,'' Kristek said. ''We used that as our guide. After the trees were planted, each was watered by hand, staked and tied with a flexible tie so it could stand tall despite ice, snow or wind.''

More than 470 saplings were re-planted at Kin-Kam Tree Farm, over the next two years they will be carefully nursed. The goal is to transplant 400 healthy trees back to the location of the new hospital after the construction is complete. In addition more than 2,000 regionally appropriate trees will be planted along with grasses and wildflowers.

''Because the land was once a farmstead, there was a lack of diversity due to man?EUR??,,????'???s intervention,?EUR??,,????'?? said Bonnie Roy, principal of SWT Design. ?EUR??,,????'??We?EUR??,,????'???ll be able to restore it to what?EUR??,,????'???s appropriate for this eco-region. When Mercy Hospital Joplin opens, the surrounding grounds will have a greater variety of trees, native grasses and wildflowers than what was on the land previously. It will be a beautiful space.''