Tree Installation Marks Beginning Of Landscape Work At Gathering Place

At Tulsa's Gathering Place, the first of almost 6,000 trees are going in the ground. The work started with a very big one Tuesday.

It marked the beginning of the landscaping work in a park where landscaping is one of the main attractions.

It wasn't the first tree, just the first large tree being planted at the Gathering Place. At more than 5 tons and 23 feet tall, it was a delicate operation to safely lift it to the spot designated for it.

Project Manager Jeff Stava said, "It's pretty exciting to be putting in the trees, and the grasses and the plantings for the park."

Special Coverage: A Gathering Place for Tulsa

The designers marked hundreds of spots around the pond, the center of the Gathering place, where installation of the landscaping started on the south end.

Stava said, "And then we're going to start going around the east side, and then we'll go to the pedestrian bridge between the adventure playground and the great lawn."

The large Pond Cypress was grown in Arcadia, Oklahoma, but trees are coming from all over the country - the biggest ones require a crane.

This is one of the larger trees being planted at the Gathering Place but there are 80 more like it - more than 5,000 trees in all to be planted over the next year.

The warm winter that delayed tree planting sped up work on the playgrounds and excavation on the pond; and now the boathouse is taking form.

“And there will be a floating dock and the boats will be stored on automatic racks. They're being designed in Australia,” Stava said. “The boats will be up and down those concrete columns and they'll port the boats off onto the floating dock and through the narrows out into the larger part of the pond out on the northern end of the site.”

Workers have several months of earthwork left - moving in topsoil to cover the rest of the park.

Hundreds of truckloads of trees and shrubs and rocks from all over the country are on the way to Tulsa to the Gathering Place.