One man’s passion for trees leads to greener neighborhood

By Steve Young, for Pigeon605

A man shows up at your door, a complete stranger, and asks if you would like a tree for your boulevard. It will cost $40, he says, and he would be happy to deliver it and plant it.

What would you say?

Up and down the streets of the Tuthill neighborhood in southern Sioux Falls, where ice and wind and pests have left countless tombstone stumps in their march across the wooded area, this ended up being something much more than a question in search of an answer.

“It was a gift, really,” said Margaret Blomberg, president of the Tuthill Park Neighborhood Association. “What a gift he’s given to the entire Tuthill neighborhood. A gift to the entire city.”

The man at the door was Dr. Brian Lindaman, a 46-year-old fellow who is married with three daughters, works as a urologist at Urology Specialists, runs an occasional marathon and even creates cabinetry and more for family and friends.

Yet despite such a busy life, he actually found enough time in 2022 to help plant almost 140 trees along boulevards in the Tuthill Park area and in the nearby Lion’s Centennial, Tuthill and Spencer parks. Bur Oak, Red Oak, Pin Oak, Kentucky Coffeetree, Accolade Elm, Hackberry, Linden, Locust – Lindaman helped put them all in the ground to replace trees damaged or lost in and around his neighborhood because of an April 2013 ice storm, a September 2019 tornado and the ongoing destruction of the emerald ash borer.

And there is more planting to come, he promises, in 2023.

“You know, it takes one good person in a neighborhood to really take on this kind of work and to have the passion to get it done for all your neighbors,” said Diane deKoeyer, the neighborhood and preservation planner for the city of Sioux Falls. “In this case, that person was Brian. I don’t think there’s any question but that he went above and beyond.”

Having grown up in the wooded, hilly landscapes of southeastern Iowa, Lindaman and his family settled in the Tuthill neighborhood when they moved to town 11 years ago because its trees and hills reminded of him of home. Soon after, the April ice storm “just destroyed our neighborhood. We lost tons of trees then,” he recalls. Then came the tornado in 2019, and if that wasn’t enough, the emerald ash borer showed up and started decimating 40-to-50-year-old trees up and down the streets.

Lindaman tried to get ahead of the pests by replacing the ash trees in his own yard, as well as in friends’ yards. But the ash borer scourge continued unabated throughout the neighborhood, the city kept coming around to cut down more trees, “and it just bothered me to see us heading in the wrong direction,” he said.

So about a year or so ago, Lindaman showed up at a Tuthill Park Neighborhood Association meeting where the discussion focused on saving the historic Tuthill Park House. As he listened to the conversation, he offered an idea, suggesting places where he saw trees were needed in the park to accent the house, said Kathy English, the neighborhood association’s vice president.

“It was really wonderful,” she said. “I mean, here’s this guy with such passion for trees and for the environment. He was so knowledgeable, and he just stepped in and took ownership of replacing the trees. It was thrilling to see.”

DeKoeyer was at that meeting and told the group that grant money was available through the city to help with neighborhood improvement projects. It made sense to the neighborhood association to try to access those funds to help residents replace many of the lost trees at a cost to them of just $40 a tree. So they applied for a grant, and lo and behold, they received $5,384.

With that money secured, the neighborhood association advertised the program on its Facebook page and through an email service for which neighborhood residents had signed up. Lindaman even went door to door, leaving flyers.

The neighborhood’s response was a resounding “yes.” The initial 50 trees were snapped up in a heartbeat. When other neighborhood association projects throughout the city fell through during the year, deKoeyer was able to funnel even more dollars into Tuthill’s trees ─ $4,208 on a second go-round and $900 more on a third.

At least 84 trees were planted in residential boulevards alone ─ a reality that Blomberg and English said never would have happened had Lindaman not taken the initiative. Whether neighbors were too busy, thought buying trees was too expensive or just didn’t have the expertise, “no, it wouldn’t have gotten done without him,” English said.

“Instead, here’s this guy knocking on doors, telling people, ‘I think you could use two trees there or one tree there,’” English said. “First, they were overwhelmed. And I do get the sense that they were pleased too. I kept hearing people say, ‘I can’t believe this gentleman was even going to plant the trees.’ I mean, they were sort of taken aback … thrilled, really.”

Lindaman knew that a similar effort had taken place earlier in the All Saints neighborhood. He had contacted Rachel Meyerink with the All Saints group to learn what they had done. He also was aware that the city allowed only certain varieties of trees to be planted in boulevards and that a permit process with a form to be filled out had to be followed.

Once the neighborhood was educated on that process and the forms began flowing into the city forester’s office, the planting of the initial 50 trees across Tuthill began in earnest in May 2022.

Trees were planted from Cliff to Southeastern avenues between 49th Street and Tuthill Park. Lindaman planted many of them, though he insists he had help. “For the most part, it was people I know,” he said of volunteers. “People that have similar interests to me, that like being outdoors, that like trees.”

Sometimes, residents would do their own planting. Other times, Lindaman would help the homeowner with the project, “and their kids would be out there diving into the hole,” he said, laughing. “We’ve got parents taking pictures of their kids with the trees.”

After the initial round of trees went in, the requests kept coming. Again, with deKoeyer able to find more money as other neighborhood projects floundered, the planting continued through the summer into early fall. With each new batch of requests, it wasn’t unusual for Lindaman to take his truck to the nursery, pick up the trees and deliver them.

“My wife kind of made fun of me,” he recalls. “She used to say, ‘You know for you, buying trees is like a woman going to buy shoes.’ We laugh about it, but really, I love going to the nursery, looking at what they’ve got and bringing trees home.”

After the neighborhood requests were met, Lindaman started concentrating on the parks. The city money was virtually spent, so he sent an email out to those who had received trees and asked if they were interested in donating to place trees in Lion’s Centennial Park.

Between money out of his own pocket and the donations that came in, they managed to plant roughly 30 trees in Lion’s Centennial, 14 in Tuthill Park and 10 at Spencer Park. Planting in the parks required a permit from the city, but the Parks Department was a willing partner, Lindaman said, and has helped him out by continuing to water the trees for him.

As you might imagine, Lindaman admits that he worried a bit initially about his babies ─ the first trees that went into the ground. He would put wire or plastic tubing around the tree trunks to protect them from the deer population. And for the first month or so, it wasn’t unusual for him to stop up and down the various boulevards, checking the mulch around the trees and making sure they were doing well.

“But really, people took huge ownership of their own trees,” he said. “It was kind of a neighborhood pride thing. People were excited about it and knew it was something everybody else was doing together to make the neighborhood better. They all took really good care of their trees.”

Lindaman’s joy and satisfaction in all this came from meeting neighbors, helping them plant their trees and seeing the happiness it brought them. It confirmed to him, as well, that once he’s ready to be done being a doctor, he really could see himself happily spending more time planting trees.

“You know, I just wanted to make the neighborhood better,” he said. “At the end of the day, this is where I live. So it’s like, I’ve got my backyard to take care of, but I want everything around me to be nice. I think that’s what so many people like about our neighborhood. It’s just a beautiful, park-like neighborhood.”

And they’re not done. The neighborhood association is looking at another grant application this year. That makes sense with more ash trees scheduled to come down because of the emerald ash borers, English and Blomberg said. But then, it makes sense in any neighborhood in Sioux Falls where nature and pests have affected tree populations, deKoeyer said.

It just takes a forward-thinking neighborhood association to fill out an application, she added. And it doesn’t hurt to have a Brian Lindaman in the group who has an interest in the outdoors, in planting trees and is willing to step up.

That said, Lindaman insists his full plate means he’s in no position to take on the task of foresting the entire city, no matter how much he likes planting trees. But, he added, he is more than willing to help guide others who might be inclined to take up the cause.

“Sure, I would,” he said. “I’d love to help facilitate other people to do this stuff … because I think there’s a lot of people out there like me, who love the outdoors and love trees. I’d be happy to show them the way.”