Volunteers sought to plant new trees in town parks

by Alice E. Gerard
Grand Island Dispatch, November 2, 2007

Rochelle Smith

Each person should plant 15 trees in the span of a lifetime, just to replace the oxygen used by breathing, said Rochelle Smith, a certified arborist who, on Oct. 30, conducted the first of three training sessions for volunteers who want to plant trees on Nov. 10, in Town Commons Park on Grand Island Boulevard and in Veterans Park on Bedell Road.

It is also necessary to plant even more trees to replace those lost to natural disasters, such as last year’s “October Surprise” storm. Evidence of that unexpected snow storm can still be seen throughout the Island. The broken tree limbs and crumbling stumps that the storm left behind serve as reminders of the havoc that weather can wreak upon the landscape.

After the storm, Grand Island sought funding to replace trees that were lost to the storm. Mary Cooke, the town board’s liaison to the Island’s Conservation Commission, said that the town was able to secure a $4,200 urban and community forestry grant from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The town contributed another $4,200 to the tree fund. Working with Re-Tree WNY, an organization that was founded on Nov. 3, 2006, to replace the trees in public spaces that were lost to the freak storm, the town has the potential to raise another $8,400 through matching grants, which would give the town the possibility of being able to spend $16,800 for new trees, Cooke explained. Re-Tree WNY’s goal is, within five years, to replace all 30,000 trees in Western New York that were damaged or destroyed in the storm.

The goal for the first tree planting in Grand Island is for volunteers to plant 60 trees: 27 in Town Commons Park and 33 in Veterans Park.

The trees, said Smith, a certified arborist, must be planted on public property as a stipulation of the state grant. She emphasized that the autumn tree planting will be the first such event planned. Smith said that the town will be eligible for future grants.

“The nice part is that this is just our first planting. We will be eligible to apply for another grant for next spring,” she said.

Trees must be transplanted either in late fall or in early spring when they are dormant, Smith explained.

Smith told the volunteers that the technique chosen for transplanting trees would be far more user friendly and easier on trees than the traditional technique that municipalities use. In the traditional technique, called “ball and burlap,” the young tree is dug from the ground with a tree spade, a large piece of machinery that Smith says can cause damage to the roots. “Anything that doesn’t fit in the space gets cut off. All the rest goes into the wire basket and the burlap,” she explained. Once the tree is out of the ground, it is very heavy, weighing up to 300 pounds. Replanting the tree involves large work crews and heavy equipment, Smith said.

The technique that will be used at the upcoming planting is called the “bare root method,” Smith explained. That technique calls for the roots of trees, after the trees are dug from the ground, to have all of the dirt shaken off. With the ball and burlap technique, much of the dirt is left on the root and is wrapped up when the burlap is put on the root system. The bare root tree is kept moist by being soaked in a gel-like material, called a hydrogel dip. Once the tree has been dug up and its roots covered with hydrogel, it has just seven to 10 days to be transplanted. The short time frame in which the tree must be replanted is the main disadvantage to the bare root method, Smith explained, saying that trees with bare roots cannot remain healthy if they are out of the ground for a long period of time. One of the advantages of the bare root method is that the tree is very light and that anyone, small or large, can plant it. This means that the tree planting project is well suited to volunteers, said Smith, an Island resident who teaches in the Finger Lakes Community College horticulture department.

Another advantage of the bare root method is that it causes minimal damage to young roots, Smith said. Also, the technique is much less expensive than the ball and burlap method. It costs approximately $100 to transplant a tree by using the bare root method, and about three times as much to transplant a tree by using the ball and burlap method, she said.

The trees that will be planted were specifically chosen for the two Island locations.

“I think that we have about 15 to 18 species of trees. Many of them are flowering to give us that beautiful color. They include crab apple trees and some Japanese tree lilacs, which is a tree, not a lilac shrub. Also, we did several oaks to give us the history that we have on the Island with oaks,” Smith said. She added that, when the commission chose the trees to plant, it picked trees that could survive in Grand Island’s heavy clay soil.

People on the team that chose the trees included members of garden clubs and others who love plants and trees, Smith said.

Two more trainings for volunteers will be held at 9 and 11 a.m. on Saturday at Town Hall. Smith said that she encourages people to attend the trainings before planting the trees but that, on Nov. 10, no volunteers will be turned away.