Arbor Day

Did you get your tree planted for Arbor Day this year? Since we've maxed out our tree-plantability in our yard, our attention had to turn elsewhere this year for helping to fill in the urban forest. Since we've lived here I've added five trees to our 110 x 70' lot.....the wife says no more.

Several years ago it seemed river city was on a tree-cutting binge; working with a couple of close friends we pulled together an urban forestry committee, got the blessing of the mayor and city council and began to hold Arbor Day ceremonial tree plantings, slowed the cutting and bumped up the new plantings. When I went on council a few years after that we were planting anywhere from ratios of 1:1 or 2:1 in terms of trees planted for those removed. But, I got sideways with the then mayor over a hiring freeze and suddenly the planting budget got the ax. Not wanting the trees to take the blunt of the target on my back I left the committee.

NIPSCO led the recent slaughter of trees in river city. Feeling some public sentiment against the clear-cutting high utility fee charging giant, NIPSCO relented and gave the city one tree for every one tree they cut down in the public right-of-way. Gee, how generous. The catch was this: you plant them and be sure to recognize NIPSCO as donating them.

So, this is what I did this last Friday. I planted the replacement trees that NIPSCO was shamed into donating to the city, after much applause and hoopla to the utility during a public ceremony. The bright side of this was that the four trees our "team" were given to plant became a great lesson in true community volunteerism to my kids and the four youth group kids who helped. Have you hugged your tree today?