Indy Redbud Project

project leader: Justin M
location: 3101 Ruckle Street
(Mapleton Fall Creek)
latest update rss: Great photos of our wonderful neighbors and their trees!

the project

The Indy Redbud Project is a community identity and environmental art initiative that will over time help to unify the Mapleton Fall Creek neighborhood and help restore the urban tree canopy.

With $10,000 in seed funds from our winning IndyHub 5x5 and Urban Patch funds we have recently acquired two City-owned vacant and overgrown lots in Mapleton Fall Creek to plant groves of redbuds as an urban tree farm. Over time we will use the Indy Redbud Project to engage a number of partners, residents and neighborhood or environmental groups to expand the program to populate the neighborhood with redbud trees – in yards and lots, and along streets, the Monon Trail and Fall Creek. In addition, we will partner with various organizations to do major plantings in the public spaces in the community. As these trees mature they will create an annual explosion of magenta and serve to visibly reinforce the community’s unity and identity. Instead of ‘good blocks’ and ‘bad blocks’ in the heart of Indy, there will be a whole environment, a whole community, growing together.

However, we will need additional funds for other key parts of the program. The Indy Redbud Project will also include a stewardship stipend program to pay neighborhood youth (many from lower income families) to help care for the trees, and have a website and printed materials to give homeowners and landlords information about urban forestry and also CPTED (crime prevention through environmental design) strategies that they can use to help with public safety through the design and maintenance of the built environment.

the steps

We will start by taking a vacant lot (or lots) in the Mapleton Fall Creek area and planting a grove of native redbud trees. Over time we would engage a number of partners from neighborhood associations and development corporations to individual homeowners and environmental groups to expand the program to plant the trees across the neighborhood and along the Monon Trail and Fall Creek Parkway.

As the trees mature in a short time, they will create an annual springtime display of beautiful flowers and reinforcing the community’s unity and identity. In the future an underutilized State Fairgrounds parking lot located at 38th Street and the Monon Trail, by then surrounded by redbuds, could host an annual outdoor community event. This event, the Indy Redbud Festival, can potentially attract families, neighbors, artists, entrepreneurs, and visitors to Midtown Indianapolis to a place that re-imagines and connects four of the city’s key urban connectors: Meridian Street, 38th Street/Maple Road, the Monon Trail and Fall Creek.

why we're doing it

Indy’s inner city has had a long and difficult past including challenges around housing, health, education, crime, jobs and wealth-building, and the environment. Once thriving communities across the city are now burdened with vacant lots, a degraded environment, and limited positive community interactions. Indy needs some love. So how can we innovatively, creatively and sustainably help our neighbors and fellow Hoosiers fall in love again with and populate the urban heart of Indianapolis? Our idea is simple – make it beautiful. Redbud trees are native ornamental trees that can populate streets, yards, and neighborhoods with pinks and magentas each spring. The trees are versatile, and easy to propagate. They can grow in the shade or sun, wet or dry, and even the poor soil conditions found in many vacant lots and difficult open spaces. The project is to create a program to cultivate and plant redbud trees throughout an Indy community and to create a new seasonal annual event to help bring people to love our urban neighborhoods.

More information may be found at indyredbud.org