The Observation Deck

Lakewood Tree Task Force and friends at work.

Now that the ibuprofen is kicking in and I can feel my toes again, I wanted to post this to let everyone know.

Thanks to everyone who made it to Lakewood Park today and assisted all of us from the Tree Task Force in planting 12 new trees. After raising funds from concerned citizens (a HUGE thank you to all who gave to the Gift-A-Tree program), we were able to purchase a great variety of new trees. As many people know, the City is removing all of the Ash trees on city property due to damage from Emerald Ash Borer. Last week the City removed the 6 or 7 Ash trees that lined Lakewood Park between Lake Rd. and the baseball field. In that area there are now new trees that over the next few decades should become a beautiful, welcoming corridor for future visitors and passersby.

You will now see some unique varieties of trees while you run or walk by the field. Planted today were an American Beech, a Burr Oak, a White Pine, a Tuliptree, a Ginko, 3 Dogwoods, 2 Crabapples (by the Old Stone House), a Maple (turning some beautiful colors right now), and what many of us hope will be a signature tree specimen, a European Weeping Beech. The City will be finishing up the cleanup for us (thank YOU!) and staking the trees next week. At some point in the future, we hope to put tags on all the trees with information about them, to assist people in increasing their understanding of our trees. We also didn't plant them in rows, to make things look a little less 'mechanical'.

We hope that everyone enjoys them for years to come. In not too many years, I can see people leaning against them reading a book, or enjoying the fireworks on the 4th. I expect our dogs will enjoy them as well, but try not to give them free reign quite yet. Because the trees are young, dog 'donations' are a little hard on them.

There are lots of people to thank for bringing this to fruition, and for the extra effort. You know who you are. As an Arborist, this was a very satisfying day for me. May this be the first of many such projects.

Now, where is my liniment...

John

Arrgh. Is anyone else seeing the giant file? New phone. Don't know how to re-size the pictures. Sorry.

My daughter had such a fun time today with her fellow girl scouts. We plan on visiting the tree she planted for years to come. They name the ginkgo tree Bob, so I hope everyone gets to watch Bob flourish through the years.