Auburn University and the City of Auburn have an affinity for trees, and that affinity was apparent on Saturday.
Mayor Bill Ham recently signed a proclamation, which officially declared that Auburn would celebrate Arbor Day on Feb. 25th.
Many prepared to celebrate the day throughout the community, and the Auburn Tree Commission provided the community with an easy way to participate in bettering the environment: They handed out nearly one thousand trees to the community.
Arbor Day was first observed in Nebraska in 1872, when the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture adopted a resolution from local journalist J. Sterling Morton to benefit the environment by setting aside one day to plant trees, according to the Arbor Day Foundation’s website.
Morton used his platform to spread agricultural information, believing that “the cultivation of flowers and trees is the cultivation of the good, the beautiful, and the ennobling in man.”
The day was for many years celebrated on April 22nd, Morton’s birthday. However, National Arbor Day is now celebrated on the last Friday in April.
States, counties and municipalities may elect to celebrate on the day that they consider to be the best for planting new trees. For Auburn, this day is Feb. 25th.
Paul Schrantz, a professor in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, detailed the Tree Commission’s plans for Arbor Day.
“Many states observe Arbor Day on different dates throughout the year based on best tree planting times in their area,” Schrantz said. “Alabama has chosen to celebrate Arbor Day during the last full week of February, and the Auburn Tree Commission has chosen Saturday, Feb. 25, for our tree give away.”
The Auburn Tree Commission will be hosted their tree giveaway from 9:00 AM until noon at three locations in the Auburn area: Kroger on Dean Road, Winn Dixie on South College Street and Publix on Moore's Mill Road.
The Commission will handed out 900 1-year-old, bare-root redbud and white oak seedlings to the community.
By doing this, they hope that the public will become more aware of the need for trees, because of their benefits to the environment. Some of these benefits include the reduction of urban pollution, cooler temperatures from shade, the absorption of carbon dioxide and production of oxygen.
“One of the issues that our environment faces is lack of awareness,” said Mary Jo Berkstresser, a junior in the School of Forestry and Wildlife sciences. "Arbor day is an excellent way for people to learn about issues that our planet faces and a way for people to actively improve our environmental health.”
For those who wish to participate in the beautification and improvement of environmental health in Auburn, but could not attend the Arbor Day event, the opportunity to get involved was not limited to this one day.
“Prior to give away we held out 50 redbud and 50 white oak trees that will be potted and grown until Auburn's City Fest on April 29, where we will have a Tree Commission booth and give away the potted trees along with information about the importance of trees in the urban landscape,” says Schrantz.
Concerning the success of the event, Schrantz says, “The citizens of Auburn always look forward to this event and there are always people at the sites waiting for us to set up so that they can be assured of receiving a tree. Most are repeat customers who tell us about the trees they have received and planted in previous years and let us know how much they have grown or this year how the drought may have killed some of them. In addition, this year we handed out instructions on how to send the tree commission pictures of their plantings so that we can post them on the city's updated website.”
Although this was one of the largest events of the year, this not the Commission’s only project.
“Other projects of the Tree Commission include potting left-over trees from Arbor Day and giving them away at City Fest, giving away free trees during the Christmas Parade and maintaining the Historic Tree Trail along Town Creek between Gay Street and Wrights Mill Road,” Schrantz said.
Auburn University recently earned its seventh Tree Campus USA Designation, in the spring of 2016.
“More than 8,000 trees are located on the 601 acres of Auburn's campus, and the count continues to grow,” said Sarah Phillips of the University Office of Communications and Marketing. “In 2015, 202 new trees were planted on campus.”
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