Tree Planting – New York State Urban Forestry Council

Town of Kent Launches Community Forestry Program with Aid of Council Grant

September 11, 2019September 10, 2019 by Michelle Sutton

Town of Kent folks savor planting a white oak on park land around Lake Carmel. Photo by Bill Huestis

The town of Kent, NY (pop. ~ 13,500) is located in Putnam County. In 2018, the freak EF2 (110 mph at peak) tornado of May 15 plowed through a portion of Kent, uprooting or toppling 40 trees around Lake Carmel. The Town applied for and received a Council grant to plant red maples and white oaks in some key locations around the Lake. The initially scheduled spring planting activities had to be postponed due to unseasonal weather. Town of Kent Councilman Bill Huestis says, “The great news is that we finalized our initial tree planting in late June around Lake Carmel, and as of this writing all of the trees are doing fine.”

For Arbor Day 2019, Hofstra Adds Pink-Flowering Dogwoods to its Campus Arboretum

May 12, 2019May 12, 2019 by Michelle Sutton

On April 24, four pink-flowering dogwood trees were planted on the Hofstra campus in Hempstead, Long Island in celebration of Arbor Day 2019. The planting is part of an ongoing effort by the university’s Tree Advisory Committee to create a greener Hofstra.

“Urban street trees, which can be seen on Hofstra’s campus, provide benefits economically and psychologically that far exceed what the eye can see,” said biology major Penelope Ramos ’20. “Hofstra strives to be at the forefront of educating and setting the example for surrounding local governments and future generations.”

Thirty-Three Urban Forest Inventories/Mgmt Plans to Inform Your UFMP

May 13, 2019May 12, 2019 by Michelle Sutton

The Council now has 33 professional Urban Forest Inventories/Mgmt Plans from around New York State collected for your perusal. Most of the inventories/plans were funded by grants from the Environmental Protection Fund (aka cost-share grants), with applications evaluated by NYSDEC staff. This compendium of Plans could be a very helpful resource under any circumstances but especially as you think about your community’s grant application for EPF grants Round 15 later this year.

According to grants administrator and DEC Environmental Program Specialist Michelle Higgins, under Round 14, there were 29 municipalities or not-for-profit (NFP) groups who received funding for Tree Inventory/Community Forestry Management Plans, 8 munis or NFPs who received Tree Maintenance grants, 13 munis or NFPS who received grants for Tree Planting, and 2 Cornell Cooperative Extension agencies (Dutchess and Nassau Counties) who received grants for Education Programming.

Urban Forest Inventories, Management Plans, and Reports:

Akwesasne Community Forest
Batavia
Binghamton
Canandaigua
DeWitt
Fulton
Ithaca
Kingston
Long Beach
Mamaroneck
Massena
Middletown
Friends of Mt Hope Cemetery
Mount Kisco
NYC by Neighborhood
Newburgh
Nyack
Ogdensburg, Part I
Ogdensburg, Part II
Ossining
Prospect Park, Brooklyn
Red Hook, Town
Red Hook, Village
Rochester
Rye’s Crawford Park
Saratoga Springs
Schenectady
Scottsville
Syracuse
Warwick
Washington DC (performed by Cornell UHI Team)
Watertown
Watervliet

Arbor Day Ceremony in Albany Honors Mary Kramarchyk Beck, DEC Poster Contest Winners

April 29, 2019April 29, 2019 by Michelle Sutton

NYSDEC Urban Forestry Program Coordinator Gloria Van Duyne presented a framed copy of the Arbor Day 2019 poster to winner Paul Bergwall, who is from the Rochester area. Paul worked for Kodak for many years and then became an art teacher. He and his wife were thrilled to be in attendance and to see his photograph as a poster (printed by International Paper).

On April 26, NYSDEC and the NYS Office of General Services (OGS) hosted a ceremony in honor of Arbor Day 2019. The gathering included members of the State Arbor Day Committee and state and local officials, including Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan. A London planetree (Platanus x acerifolia) was planted on the State Street side of East Capitol Park, near the corner of the Capitol Building, to replace one that was lost during a storm. (Each year, a tree is planted ceremonially on the Capitol grounds).

Bainbridge Celebrates Arbor Day with Seven New Trees

December 7, 2018December 7, 2018 by Michelle Sutton

Members of the Bainbridge Garden Club admire a newly planted Japanese tree lilac (*Syringa reticulata*). Photos Courtesy Village of Bainbridge.

Reported by Philip C. Wade, Bainbridge Mayor, Leader of Arbor Date Event

The Village of Bainbridge (pop ~ 3300) is located at the eastern edge of Chenango County, halfway between Binghamton and Oneonta. The Village was awarded up to $1000 in grant monies from the New York State Urban Forestry Council to be used for tree purchase and planting materials for a community Arbor Day Tree Planting event which was held in Bainbridge on Friday, May 25th. It was a very successful event, with participation from the Village DPW crew, Boy Scouts, and the local Jericho Garden Club of Bainbridge.

As a result, seven balled-and-burlapped (B&B) trees of 1.5 to 2” caliper representing six different species were planted around the Village, including the Village Green Park, along Greenlawn Avenue, on Front Street, and on Parsons Street. All species are suitable for Bainbridge’s USDA Hardiness Zone (5a to 6a, depending on microclimate within the Village), and in respect to the local maple sugaring industry, included a sugar maple cultivar (Acer saccharum ‘Fall Fiesta’).

Freeville Fall Follow-Up: Arbor Day Planting Part II

November 30, 2018November 30, 2018 by Michelle Sutton

Thank you to Tom Cavataio, Member of the Freeville Village Planning Board and Tree Committee, for this excellent report.

Another successful tree planting in the Village of Freeville took place on Saturday, November 10^th, 2018. You may have read in a previous blog post that we hosted a limited planting in May 2018. The planting was limited due to the lack of availability of the narrow-growth crabapples that we selected to plant this year.

The Tree Committee met in July to confirm the varieties of the crabapples as well as a small number of cultivars of two native hardwood species that we would purchase bare root: red maple (Acer rubrum ‘Karpick’) and swamp white oak (Quercus bicolor ‘Beacon’). The goals were to beautify the areas of plantings, employ the traffic-calming effect of trees planted in the school zone, and also to replicate to a certain degree the taller-growth trees that many long-time village residents recall from years past (something of a challenge, given that a lot of infrastructure now exists in that area that did not decades ago). The July meeting also yielded a tentative timeline for ordering and taking delivery of the trees, which we planned to plant the first or second Saturday in November.

Watertown’s 17th Annual Fall Planting Event

November 20, 2018November 13, 2018 by Michelle Sutton

Volunteers and Watertown City Planner Michael DeMarco (holding stakes) plant a bare root dawn redwood (*Metasequoia glyptostroboides*) in Cosgrove-Sherman St. Park.

Reported by Michael DeMarco, Planner for the City of Watertown and ISA Certified Arborist

October 20, 2018 marked the City of Watertown’s 17^th Annual Fall Tree Planting event co-sponsored by the City and Tree Watertown, the City’s street tree advisory board. This year’s event was held at Cosgrove–Sherman St. Park. Historically, this large green space has been used as a sanitary and stormwater sewer corridor, but it is technically categorized as a municipal park.

Pictorial: Honoring Brian Skinner, Remembering Pat Tobin

September 29, 2018 by Michelle Sutton

Following a tree planting in his honor, Brian Skinner’s friends and colleagues gave him a bucket truck salute. Among the speakers were Jim Maloney from National Grid, Rich Nelson from the New York State Arborists, and Council Secretary Steve Harris. Photo by Sally Kellogg/DEC

Gloversville’s Arbor Day Tree Planting Boosted by Council Grant & Donations

August 28, 2018August 26, 2018 by Michelle Sutton

Community members planting ‘Sienna Glen’ sugar maples near the Farmers Market Pavilion. Photos Courtesy City of Gloversville

Gloversville, New York, located in Fulton County halfway between Albany and Utica, was a recipient of a 2018 NYSUFC Arbor Day Grant. These grants are meant to kick-start community and urban forestry programs. Over the course of three events held in April, May, and June, 2018, the Gloversville Housing and Neighborhood Improvement Corporation (GHNIC) planted twelve trees in celebration of Arbor Day. Through these events, more than two dozen community members were involved, the public learned more about urban forestry through four stories in local newspapers, and community members expressed interest in forming an urban forestry committee.

Since originally applying for the $1000 grant, the City’s tree planting project underwent two significant shifts. The first was a shift in location. Though they had originally sought to plant trees along land-banked parcels, GHNIC folks later decided that planting trees in the “asphalt desert” that surrounds the Gloversville Farmers Market Pavilion in the heart of downtown was a better way to showcase the benefits of trees in a highly visible part of the city.

Freeville’s First-Ever Arbor Day Planting Event

August 25, 2018August 25, 2018 by Michelle Sutton

Freeville community members plant their first tree, a swamp white oak (*Quercus bicolor*), at their first-ever Arbor Day event. Photos Courtesy Village of Freeville

Freeville Village Planning Board and Tree Committee Member Tom Cavataio provided this report on Freeville’s first-ever Arbor Day planting with the help of a $1000 NYSUFC grant. Freeville (pop. ~ 520) is located in Tompkins County, east of Ithaca.

The newly formed Freeville Tree Committee held a successful Arbor Day tree planting event on May 12, 2018 with the planting of a swamp white oak (Quercus bicolor) at the Village of Freeville’s Groton Ave Park. The tree was donated to the program by Paul Paradine, a local NYSEG employee and new member of our tree committee.

A great deal of committee activity preceded the event, with signage being created, announcements in the local papers and at the local elementary school, and a last-minute decision on a one-hour delay the morning of the event (the forecast was for rain, but we were still able to carry off the event by delaying it for an hour).