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Who knows the right way to spread mulch around a tree? Or how to select the right tree for a specific space?

Angela Anderson, the city of Longview’s new beautification manager and arborist, spoke during a meeting Tuesday about all the consideration and care that must be taken when planting a tree.

Anderson was addressing a public meeting at Maude Cobb Convention and Activity Center about an upcoming project that will plant 5,000 trees in Longview thanks to an almost $1.2 million grant from the Texas A&M Forest Service. The city is required to work with an arborist on the project.

“OK, so the way that we do mulch around a tree — let me ask you this: Who prefers a donut over a volcano? Donut. Same thing with trees,” Anderson said. “You want to put your mulch in a donut shape around your trees, 3 inches thick, 3 inches away from the trunk of the tree and 3 feet in diameter across. So it’s the 3-3-3. We do that because if you do mulch like a volcano, you’re encouraging roots in the top of your trunk.

“That’s not where you want roots. You want roots down here in the soil. …Plus it harbors insects and fungal bodies. So you don’t want your moisture up here on the trunk of the tree.”

Anderson is a Board Certified Master Arborist through the International Society of Arboriculture and a registered Consulting Arborist through the American Society of Consulting Arborists.

She’ll lead implementation of the grant, which is designed to “restore a canopy severely impacted by years of drought and extreme weather,” according to the city of Longview.

A portion of the trees, 750 of them, will be distributed to city of Longview residents for private planting, with the city working with Keep Longview Beautiful and the Longview Arboretum and Nature Center.

The remainder will be planted in specific areas of town that have already been identified by the need for trees to, for instance, provide shade to help lower temperatures.

That effort will require volunteers, Anderson said.

“We’re going to have some tree planting events, and so we would love to have volunteers help with that as well as when we give away the trees…,” she said. “We would love to have any assistance from, you know, our tree services, right? So from tree services, from the Native Plant Society, from our Master Gardeners, from our Master Naturalists, from people who love trees, from people who hate trees. We can bring them over to the dark side,” Anderson said jokingly.

The grant requires all the trees to be planted by Dec. 31, 2027. Anderson said she expects tree distribution will begin in the fall. Specific dates have not yet been set, but the city will provide updates on its website.