If you see a tree on and Asheville street, chances are, Susan Roderick had a hand in planting it.

by Mick Kelly   .   photo by Matt Rose

Susan Roderick has been greening up Asheville for more than a quarter century. She’s never taken a horticulture class, but Roderick, who has been executive director of Asheville GreenWorks (the former Quality Forward) for 27 years, thinks about plants and trees around the clock. And her degree in journalism has helped with her efforts to lobby the city and other entities for more aggressive environmental requirements. “I want to set it up so that if [someone] changes a lightbulb, they have to plant trees,” she says.

GreenWorks has a staff of four, plus nearly 1,000 volunteers, who help with a variety of Buncombe County beautification and litter clean-up projects year round. This year, GreenWorks is the lead agency in the design and construction of Overlook Park, part of a 37-acre area on a hill east of McCormick Stadium. The city has owned the park property for years, and Roderick envisions the space as a true lookout, a high vantage point (complete with lookout tower) where people can watch the sun set over downtown Asheville.

Tree hugging may seem passé to some, but Roderick hopes the next generation of activists will take it up just as fervently as hers did. “People don’t respect the fact that trees are so good for their environment. They take them for granted,” she says. “Taking care of them is as important as anything else we do.” 

If you were queen, what would downtown Asheville look like? We would have a lot more pervious parking lots—a lot less paving. And we’d have a lot more flowers. It would look like it does now, but double the amount of green.

Would you ever chain yourself to a tree? No. We don’t stand in the way of every tree that’s taken down. You didn’t see us living under the Magnolia [part of a controversial land deal in Pack Square Park]—though we would have thought it was ridiculous to trade that tree for a new building. But if someone does have to take a tree down, they should just go plant more trees elsewhere.

Were you disappointed in what came out of the Copenhagen climate conference? It’s what I expected. It’s like a can of mush. You knew it wasn’t going to be the final word. But it’s a step toward the final answer. It did bring awareness to people. There are still people who don’t believe in global warming.

Do you ever feel frustrated that people just don’t get it? That they don’t understand how important the environment is? People have woken up to it. We just have to wake them up a lot more. Now, the developers and businesses know, for example, that landscaping is good for business. The owner of the McDonald’s on Merrimon [Avenue] put all native plants in his landscaping. He didn’t fight what the city required of him. He did great. We had Arbor Day there when it was new.

What else can people do to make a difference? Pick up litter, or don’t litter. That’s half of our mission. I’m always picking up litter, and I feel sort of guilty. If I see litter, it’s like it’s my fault. I didn’t teach that person not to litter. I do go around with that on my shoulders…We clean up tons of trash from the French Broad River every year, and we always think: we picked it up last year, it won’t be that bad this year. But it is.