As autumn begins, park visitors will begin to see pops of beautiful reds, oranges, and golds. One notable location is Forest Hill Cemetery, with its majestic oaks, maples, and other species forming shaded tunnels throughout the winding roads.
While fall is especially beautiful and peaceful at the Cemetery, it is also a tremendous undertaking for staff to keep up and remove the many fallen leaves. For many years, staff used a baler to compact the leaves and provide leaf bales at no charge to the public. In the nearly 20 years of service, the baler was known to be finicky and would too frequently break down.
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In November of 2020, the leaf baler sadly made its final run. With repair estimates at more than $10K and replacement equipment near $25K, Parks staff looked for an alternative solution and worked with the Streets Division to find a creative solution and an offer we could not refuse. Our good friends at Streets loaned Parks a leaf pan to use on the Parks packing truck, saving the Parks Division more than $20,000. The pan, which installs in mere minutes, is typically used to collect leaves and yard waste. For Parks, it's not only a cost-savings but is also a more efficient method to move and remove the many fallen leaves in the Cemetery. This method does, however, eliminate the large leaf bales as the collected leaves are provided to locally-owned Purple Cow Organics, for composting.
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