Town of Gardiner Residents Host Joyful Arbor Day Celebration

The Town of Gardiner’s Climate Smart Gardiner Taskforce furnished this account of their Arbor Day event on April 24, 2021, funded in part by a NYSUFC Quick Start grant.

Thank you NYS Urban Forestry Council for awarding Gardiner funding for our Arbor Day Event with this Quick Start Grant. Community members enjoyed a wonderful day, and we planted a total of six trees (see aerial map below) which will add beauty and shade to our local Majestic Park for years to come. About 75 people attended the event, which we’d advertised through social media, flyers, and reaching out to various community and news organizations.

Participants included Town of Gardiner’s Climate Smart Gardiner Taskforce Members, Parks & Recreation Committee Members, New Paltz Central School District Middle School Climate Smart Club Members, Town Board Member Franco Carucci and Town Supervisor Marybeth Majestic, elementary school students, Bloom Landscape Design and Fine Gardening, County Executive and Gardiner resident Pat Ryan (as an attendee), and the general public.

With the momentum we created, we are now doing outreach to look for volunteers to serve on a Town Tree Board that would create a tree policy/ordinance and coordinate future Arbor Day celebrations. Additionally, we reached out to County Executive Ryan about helping some other Ulster County municipalities plant trees by including this in the County budget.

We made this a public celebration and ceremony. Details of the event:

• Gardiner’s Town Supervisor Marybeth Majestic presented a signed proclamation and pronounced April 24th, 2021 as Arbor Day in Gardiner.
• Town Board Member Franco Carucci provided remarks about the history of Arbor Day.
• Local children participated in the event telling tree jokes and reading poems about trees.
• Tim Hunter, a local musician provided some musical entertainment and sang a few songs about stewardship and trees.
• Two middle school Climate Club students were appointed as tree stewards and presented certificates of appreciation.
• Six trees were planted for the event. The Gardiner Highway Department dug the holes for us and planted five of the trees before the day of the event. A week later, we installed hardware cloth and irrigation bags.
• A Climate Smart Gardiner member donated a tree in memory of her recently deceased partner. Since it was smaller, Bloom Landscape Design & Fine Gardening did their planting demo with this donated Magnolia ‘Ann’ tree on the day of the event followed by a Q&A.
• We created a Storybook Walk with the book, “The Tremendous Tree.”
• We put together a tree ID Hike booklet for kids to learn about the newly planted trees.
• Children helped mulch the trees on the day of the event.
• We created an art display of stickamadoos so children could take home an art project. We provided them with a goody bag that included yarn and seeds that Lowe’s donated for the event.