Geneseo Troop 4070 Boy Scouts Garren (orange shirt) and Billy (grey jacket) help two elementary-age boys plant a tree at Long Point Park.

Boy Scouts of America Troop 4070 of Geneseo led a Community Planting and Gardening Event at Long Point Park on Saturday, April 17, 2021. They prepared a fantastic account of their day, truly a model for grant reporting! Thank you to Troop 4070 Parent Committee Chair John Rutigliano for submitting the report. “We consider our event a great success,” he says. Here are some highlights.

  • We planted six bare-root trees at Long Point Park.
  • We distributed 50 buttonbush shrubs and sawtooth oak trees and 25 blazing stars and daylilies into the community with the support of Master Gardener Julie Brocklehurst-Woods.
  • Fifteen attendees (eight of whom were age ten or younger) participated in our event. COVID-19 likely dampened participation and caused more additional conflicts than a typical year (fall and spring sports were both underway).
  • Three teams of Scouts led tree planting, vegetable gardening, and sapling pickup stations.
  • The Troop used Facebook and Instagram to publicize the event.
  • Ten area schools adjacent to Conesus Lake received flyers via email.
  • Inventory management and lower-than-expected in-kind donations allowed us to add a flower/vegetable planting station for under $90.
  • Coalition of local Boy Scout Troop, Town of Geneseo, and non-profit community organizations combined to deliver a day of service and learning about trees.
  • Eric Randall led an informative walking tour of the trees of Long Point Park. He identified several invasive species in situ and used a tree diameter tape to calculate the ages of the larger trees.
  • Megan Harris of the Finger Lakes PRISM led an informative presentation on the many foreign and domestic invasive species that are threatening to invade the Finger Lakes.

Father and son team Eric (L) and Tim Hammond (R) plant a Kentucky Coffee tree at Long Point Park.

Eric Randall, a Master Forest Owner of Cornell Cooperative Extension, holds a branch of a Hemlock tree with the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA). Randall explained that the aphid-like creature sucks the sap from trees, causing decline and death.

About the event site: Long Point Park is a public park that offers nine lakeside acres of open space and serves as the only public access to Conesus Lake in the Town of Geneseo. The Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) destroyed all but one ash tree at Long Point Park. The EAB is an invasive beetle that lays eggs along the bark of ash trees then burrows underneath the bark, killing them. Trees at Long Point reduce and filter storm water runoff into the lake, remove air pollutants, help moderate temperatures, retain ground water, and prevent shoreline erosion. They are also habitats that are critical to the lakeside ecosystem.

Megan Harris, Aquatic Invasive Species Program Coordinator at the Finger Lakes Partnership for Invasive Species Management, presented the many foreign and domestic aquatic threats to Conesus Lake and all the Finger Lakes.