2010 Spring RNeighborWoods Community Tree Planting

We never said we could control the weather.

That was certainly apparent at the spring 2010 RNeighborWoods Community Tree Planting. It had rained the entire night before the big day and each of the planting holes was filled with water.

But Rochester volun-trees are hearty and came out, dug in, and planted 500 trees.

On Saturday, April 24, over 500 neighbors, youth, and other community volunteers worked together to plant 500 trees in one morning, a record number of trees in one planting for the RNeighborWoods program. A grant from the MN Department of Agriculture provided the funding for this planting as a part of an Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) Planning & Preparedness Grant. In our city we currently have an estimated 30,000 publicly owned (boulevard and park) Ash trees. Removal and replacement once the Borer has infected them will be a daunting and costly task.

Types of trees planted included Kentucky Coffeetree, Ginkgo, Bicolor Oak, Accolade Elm (a new disease-resistant variety that grows up to 70 feet tall), London Planetree, and Burr Oak and that now fill approximately 23,381 feet of boulevards. Once again we had a large youth representation, as well as a record number of Citizen Foresters who came out to guide the volunteers.

Over its lifetime, each street tree planted on Saturday will produce a net profit of up to $2,300 by cleaning the air, protecting the water, and creating a cooler and greener neighborhoods (U.S. Forest Service’s Midwest Community Tree Guide).

The muddy and damp planter teams started coming back to home base at Manor Park about 11 am.

Lunch was served at noon compliments of Great Harvest, Gingerbread House, Pepsi, and our favorite, Roscoe’s Root Beer & Ribs.

What was this picnic lunch celebrating?

The Greening of Rochester!

We took the time out to chat, make new connections with people, eat, and pat ourselves on the back for the end of a week long city-wide litter pick up where 12.34 tons of waste was collected by a record 3,500 volunteers, as well as the planting of 500 trees. That’s alot of green!

An RNeighbors program, RNeighborWoods partners worked for months to organize this successful event and include Herring Exterior Design, Maier Forest & Tree, Olmsted County Youth Commission, Rochester City Forester, Rochester Public Utilities, and Quarry Hill Nature Center.

Rochester business were generous in providing sponsorships.

You can see lots of photos from this drenched community tree planting at RNeighbors on Facebook. Laura Horihan, of The Post-Bulletin also wrote a nice article which encapsulated the morning well.

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