Fourth & Gill's Neighborhood Arboretum (click here to visit and explore!) was a pandemic project that got Gordon Coker and Evan Tishuk out of the house.

 

There was an informal map of large neighborhood trees that had been assembled many years ago, but subsequent removals and the effects of time made this list largely obsolete. Gordon either dug up or reproduced this map and we used our time on countless dog walks (and bike rides) to track down the remaining trees and replacements for the ones that were lost. This effort became more of a scavenger hunt to identify as many unique species as they could.

 

From there, they captured GPS coordinates and determined which of those were the largest and most significant. The first version of the map was done on a standard Google Map, but their limitations necessitated a custom application. Evan Tishuk's background in software development made this a feasible option, and resulted in the app that is available today.