Tree planting: Antidote to global warming

Environmental neglect on the part of the citizenry in general has given rise to the environmental problems we are experiencing today. The Kyoto Protocol which is the world’s primary International Agreement on Global Warming has been proffering possible solutions to this environmental imbalance including the 2007 United Nations Conference in Bali, Indonesia, on environmental neglect. The Protocol now covers over 160 countries presently. Yet we continue to deal with the environment with utmost impunity and neglect at the peril of everybody. The lack of awareness as to know the benefits of tree planting has added to the continuous problem encumbering the fragile environment.

In recent time, the emphasis on the issue of climate change globally is on the rise particularly as the challenge is narrowed to global warming. Empirical evidence of the destructive consequences of environmental neglect has lent more credence to the scientific revelation of climate change. The planet earth is now better described as the planet in peril, (courtesy of CNN). One will discover that environmental scientists and other scientists in related field on the environment have been breaking their heads through research in order to lay to rest this particular environmental challenge that is belabouring humans, flora and fauna.

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The painting is by Nancy Merkle

Plant Tree for the generations to come

See a fine example by senior people

RIVERSIDE – The 200 senior citizen residents of Mount Rubidoux Manor downtown on Monday showed their commitment to conserve resources on behalf of their grandchildren.

They held a tree-planting ceremony and collected donations toward a Nature Conservancy program aimed at planting 1 billion trees in the Atlantic forest of Brazil.

They called the event Seniors Giving the Gift of Green and many of the residents wore clothes of green or earth tones to the morning gathering.

The residents council at the 16-story senior apartment building earlier this month adopted a resolution calling for a reduction in resource use within each apartment, such as by drawing curtains to reduce air conditioning use, and by turning off the water while brushing their teeth.

The resolution also called for a continuing effort to find more ways to “go green” to make Mount Rubidoux Manor a model for other senior citizen residences to follow.

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The painting is by Nancy Merkle

Association promotes tree planting

The Environmental Concerned Citizens Association of Ghana (ECCAG) has embarked on a nationwide tree planting exercise as a way of protecting the environment and to also reduce global warming.

The association in this regard has distributed plant seedlings to be planted in communities, schools, churches, along roadsides and water bodies, while ensuring wildlife conservation and promoting sanitation in the Western Region.

A statement issued by the Association Secretariat said the programme,
which was held in areas including the Shama Ahanta area, Mpohor Wassa West-Daboase and Ahanta West-Agona Nkwanta as well as Tarkwa Nsuam Municipality were in support of the clean and green Ghana education campaign.

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The painting is by Nancy Merkle

Thanks to its tree man, Lancaster has it made in the shade

Mark Lubera spreads love of trees throughout town

They call Mark Lubera the “Johnny Appleseed” of Lancaster — a big, burly man with a friendly face credited with planting more than 15,000 trees in the past 15 years.

“It’s a team effort — from the Town Council on down,” Lubera said modestly, shifting just a tad uneasily in his chair during a recent interview with The Buffalo News.

“I just do what I do. It isn’t anything special.”

Many in town would beg to differ, especially as the second anniversary of the devastating October 2006 snowstorm approaches.

“We couldn’t have survived the October storm without him — period,” said his boss, Terrence McCracken, Parks, Recreation & Forestry crew chief.

Lubera grew up on a farm in the Catskills, wandering its forests for entertainment as a boy and laying the foundation for a lifelong love affair with trees and the soil.

Equal parts tree doctor and small-town diplomat, he’s saved plenty of mature trees and soothed many homeowners’ concerns in the 40-square-mile municipality he’s called home since 1994.

Recently the Depew Union Free School District called on Lubera to help save the life of a more than 100-year-old red oak tree that school officials fretted would not survive a recent round of summertime construction projects at the high school.

“It broke my heart to think we might lose that tree,” said Depew Superintendent Kimberly A. Mueller, who remembered Lubera’s talents from his annual Arbor Day talks and tree-planting sessions with Lancaster schoolchildren when Mueller served as principal at Hillview Elementary School.

Anxious school officials heaved a sigh of relief after Lubera arrived on the Depew High School campus, checked the red oak over and pronounced the patient one of the better specimen trees he’d ever seen in Western New York.

Then Lubera trimmed about 20 percent of the aged tree’s branches that had sustained some storm damage, advised deep feeding for its roots and was on his way.

Lubera rolled into Lancaster to put down his own roots in 1981 along with his wife, two children and a dependable old Volkswagen bug trailing behind a U-Haul truck.

For 13 years, he worked on trees all over Western New York as an employee of Davey Tree and Lawn Care — the company he credits with training him in all the nuances of tree care and maintenance. He had a degree in natural resources conservation to help him along, too.

In 1994 he was hired by the Town of Lancaster.

Lubera remembers vividly driving around Lancaster in the fall of 2006 — two weeks before the October storm — and looking at the fruit of his 12 years of labor on the town’s tree population.

“I said to myself: ‘Man, we’ve got this licked. We’re looking really tight . . . I’m going to be able to retire in eight years, and this place is gonna look great.’ ”

Overnight on Oct. 13, 2006, it all changed.

Lubera says he’s still taking down trees affected by the storm, but he and partner Matt Perillo and a crew of forestry workers expect to have all the damaged ones replaced by 2009.

Lancaster, which is celebrating its 10th year as a “Tree City” recognized by the National Arbor Day Foundation, is expected to continue its aggressive tree planting and care program that Lubera says was initiated by late longtime town Council Member Artel Metz in the early 1960s.

These days the town also gets an assist from Re-Tree Western New York, a nonprofit group that continues to counter the damage from the October surprise storm. Last spring, with the help of Re-Tree volunteers, Lancaster was able to plant double, offset rings of Japanese lilac and flowering pear trees in Westwood Park.

“They look beautiful,” said Lubera, musing on the benefits of last summer’s rains for the fledgling trees. “Where we once had barren ground, we’re going to have people sitting under flowering trees every spring.”

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The painting is by Nancy Merkle

Tree plantings today in Newark

The City of Newark along with the Tree Foundation will launch the Newark Renaissance Trees Program which will plant hundreds of trees, shrubs, and flowers at seven sites throughout the city this fall.

The first planting, scheduled for 9 this morning, will be done in partnership with the Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District and will take place at Lincoln Park, a historic 4-acre park established in 1850.

Through the support of volunteers, community groups, and partnering organizations, more than 160 new flowering and shade trees will be planted throughout Newark. City residents can take part in the Newark Renaissance Trees Program as volunteers and will receive free proper planting demonstrations, gloves, and tools.

“My administration is committed to creating a greener and more environmentally-friendly Newark,” Mayor Cory A. Booker said. “Trees give us cleaner air on our streets and also present a more attractive appearance to residents and visitors.

Mehdi Mohammadish, the city’s acting engineering director, said the trees that will be planted are native to Newark and North Jersey.

As of August, more than 300 large 2- to 3-inch caliper trees have been planted in the city with the help.

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The painting is by Nancy Merkle

Autumn is an excellent time for planting trees

Fall isn’t just for planting bulbs.

It is also an ideal time of year for more ambitious garden projects, such as planting a mature tree that will shade the sliding glass door on your deck next summer.

Or replacing those generic foundation plantings with shrubs that are not only lovely in spring and summer, but also offer food and shelter for winter’s creatures.

Fall planting is smart because it gives trees and shrubs time to grow the roots that can take advantage of a cool, wet spring, experts say, leaving them better able to handle the drought of summer.

And the selection can be as plentiful in fall as it is in spring.

“We actually restock in the fall,” said Jason Sersen, retail manager at Kingsdene Nurseries in Monkton. “It is such a good planting season.”

Trees and shrubs can be safely planted until at least Halloween, though they will require generous watering until they have dropped all their leaves, experts advise.

Like managers at other nurseries and garden centers, Sersen has noticed more buyers are interested in planting native trees and shrubs.

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The painting is by Nancy Merkle

Heritage status sought for tamarind tree

HYDERABAD: Representatives of the Centre for Deccan Studies and Forum for A Better Hyderabad have sought heritage status for the tamarind tree, which saved 150 lives during the Musi floods in 1908.

Addressing a press meet here on Friday, Centre for Deccan Studies secretary Sajjad Shahid and Forum for a Better Hyderabad president M Veda Kumar said that they would write to the Hyderabad Conservation Committee for notifying the tamarind tree in the heritage list.

Along with this tamarind tree, number of plaques fixed on buildings and monuments at various locations in the city which recorded the High Flood Level (HFL) marks should be protected and declared as heritage precincts, Veda Kumar said.

Simultaneously, an old building at Old Gandhi Hospital, where the city improvement board (CIB) office was set up should also be declared as heritage building and a CIB Museum should be housed in it, Veda Kumar said. GHMC commissioner S P Singh had promised that the tamarind would be protected as long as he would be in the post. The official assured that the historic tree will be not chopped off for road-widening, he said.

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The painting is by Nancy Merkle

Singapore firm helps Da Nang with urban tree planting

VietNamNet Bridge – Central Da Nang City has announced that Singapore’s National Parks Company will lend its expertise to a planning scheme to develop urban tree systems in the city.

At a recent working session with National Parks representatives, Da Nang authorities entrusted the company with designing a pilot project to plant trees along extended sections of Nguyen Van Linh Street and around the March 29 Square.

The pilot project will also replace a number of trees on two roads running along the Han River, as well as in a number of city parks.

National Parks has pledged to assist Da Nang City in the training of planners and the selection of species of trees proven to be suitable to the city’s soil as well as transfer its tree care techniques to local workers.

The Singaporean company expects to submit detailed planning to the Da Nang People’s Committee for approval in October.

Da Nang’s green-space currently stands at 2.2 sq.m per capita, much lower than the criteria set for an environmentally-friendly city, which requires an average green-space of 4-5 sq.m per person.

Natural disasters and the local residents’ poor sense of protecting trees are blamed for the rapid decrease in the number of trees in the city’s downtown area.

National Parks is a prestigious company operating in an urban ecological area. It has successfully designed a number of parks in China, the United Arab Emirates and the Middle East.

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The painting is by Nancy Merkle

Downtown School students learn importance of planting trees

Students at the Downtown School got their hands dirty Tuesday afternoon while they learned the importance of planting trees in urban areas.

Prior to the tree-planting outside the school at 500 Grand Ave., Alice Ewen-Walker, president of the National Alliance for Community Trees, explained to students why trees are needed. She said educating urban dwellers at a young age to appreciate nature’s role in improving the quality of life is key.

“Children are the future leaders of our cities,” Ewen-Walker said. “I think you need to reach out to kids when they’re young and establish a connection to nature.”

Downtown School students seemed to have no problem identifying the benefits of the new trees that now line the sidewalk outside their school.

“Trees are important for the water and for the shade,” said Sam Richardson, a second-grader. “We don’t have any inside – we can’t just have a tree in the middle of the classroom!”

Sam wasn’t alone in his theories on trees as essential to humanity.

“Trees help you breathe and if we didn’t have trees, we wouldn’t survive,” said third-grader Carter Frey. “There would be no people on earth.”

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25 volunteers needed for tree planting

Hampton – Join the Hampton Master Gardeners, Hampton Clean City Commission and Hampton Parks and Recreation Department in enhancing the Bluebird Gap Farm Arboretum at a Fall Arbor Day Tree Planting from 9 a.m. to noon Oct. 3.

About 25 volunteers are needed for this event.

Volunteers will plant additional trees, shrubs and flowers, as well as mulch existing plants to enhance the arboretum. The work will involve digging, mulching, watering and carrying containers of plants and associated activities.

Volunteers will be treated to a pizza lunch after the planting.

If you can’t do the physical labor but want to contribute to the arboretum, you can donate a tree or shrub.

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The painting is by Nancy Merkle