For Arbor Day,go plant a tree (tomorrow is Arbor Day)

Obsever Reporter ^ | 04/28/05 | Editorial

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© 2005 Observer  Publishing Co.  Washington, PA  

    For Arbor Day, go plant a tree

One gripe against development is that it tends to obliterate trees.

Certainly, some developers make a conscious effort to work with the existing landscape, rather than against it. But just as often, the bulldozers roll in and the trees come down.

That's nothing new. For example, only a single American elm remained on the once-forested site of Canon-McMillan High School after its construction nearly half a century ago.

While that elm lives on in Canon-Mac lore, it's long gone, a victim of the dreaded Dutch elm disease.

A hardier replacement looks to be on the way soon, thanks to a student taking the initiative. Senior Tiffany Holmes took up a petition, wrote letters and last week received the school board's blessing to get a disease-resistant American Liberty elm planted.

Appropriately, her project is coming together to coincide with Friday's observance of Arbor Day, which traditionally serves as a springtime impetus to go out and plant a tree.

Arbor Day actually goes all the way back to 1872, after a journalist named J. Sterling Morton realized there weren't too many trees along the prairie in his new home of Nebraska. The idea caught on throughout this country and eventually went international, with similar designations in places like Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

Now it's come back to Canon-McMillan, where longtime history teacher Tom Olszewski says he's been talking about planting a new elm for decades. But he admits that it took a student's initiative to finally get the ball rolling.

Students, take note. Adults often do listen to your ideas, and at times they're quite enthusiastic.

And folks who gripe about development, take note. Instead of complaining, this is the season to plant your own tree as a replacement for one that stands no more.  

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So go plant a tree,sounds better than planting a wet kiss on Harry Reid.

[Wneighbor]

I like planting trees. I'll water 'em and feed 'em. But, I don't hug 'em. :-)

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I've recently planted some trees from the Starks Brothers catalogue and every one of them has survived the winter or has taken off from early spring planting.
I planted 7 pecans and two hickorys last fall and three hazelnuts this spring. The fall grafted trees look like green feather dusters with the seed grown somewhat behind. One of the Hazelnuts in grafted and its ahead of the other two.

[Sender]

I read a great one liner about the suburbs: a suburb is a place where they bulldoze all the trees, then name the streets after them.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I can tell you why.
Operating machinery around a grove of trees compacts the soil and this kills many kinds of trees. They clear cut and plant puny trees afterward because they don't want to disappoint you with a dead tree after you move in.

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The hickory sounds interesting.

I have mostly maple and a few oaks.They are all well over 50 years old and healthy except for one oak that I will be cutting down soon.

[Jaysun]

I think I'll plant a bunch of trees. Maybe a bunch of Douglas fir trees. With any luck I'll have a golden goose by Christmas 2015.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Until this past weekend, I thought the hickorys were dead. Now I see a large bud emerging from one of the sticks and a tiny leaf and a bud on the other. Boy, are these slow pokes !