Tree Planting October 20, 2012

With the week ahead still a clean slate, as people plan what to do for next weekend, I'll offer the following suggestion. The suggestion is one which can truly and positively change our little plot of earth for decades to come.

The Tree Board will plant 150 Chestnut trees at Binford Park. These starts are cross-bred, disease resistant trees ( American Chestnuts with Chinese). The trees have been secured by Bryan Slade of EcoTech as part of that company's plan to plant 10,000 trees, 1,000 a year for 10 years to celebrate the company's anniversary.

The trees planted Saturday will not be the last Chestnuts the Tree Board plants. By making this initial planting we are committing to follow with care and maintenance of these trees as well as bringing more Chestnuts to New Albany. With other groups around the country doing the same thing, we may again see the Chestnut as a major species in our eastern woodlands.

Chestnut trees were decimated in the early half of the Twentieth Century by a blight. The trees had once covered much of the eastern United States. They were a towering, stately tree that contributed immensely to the prosperity of early settlers, they provided abundant habitat for wildlife, they provided a verdant cover for woodlands, and did what trees do, providing clean, fresh oxygen.

Modern cities are plagued by problems of our own construction, bad air-quality, sprawling loss of habitat, heat islands of radiant pavement, to name a few. The simple act of planting a tree can begin to balance out some of these assaults on nature.

Come to Binford Park Saturday October 20 at 9:00 AM and plant a tree. It's a wave to the future.


“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit"
                                                                                    --Nelson Henderson