HOWELL – Trees are one of the most valuable renewable resources, but they often get overlooked because they are seemingly everywhere. Trees help provide us with clean air, prevent soil erosion, and are home to many animals that our ecosystems need to survive. With the rising costs of everything, simply buying a tree has become a very expensive endeavor.
The Howell Shade Tree Commission recently offered an alternative to buying an expensive tree at a gardening center. They, with the assistance of grants from the Arbor Day Foundation and the National Wildlife Federation, held a seedling giveaway at the Howell Public Works building right off Old Tavern Road. Several different types of trees, shrubs, and plants were given away free of charge to those who showed up and wanted to take one home. A few of the different trees that were available included eastern redbud, dogwood, pawpaw, sycamore, magnolia, white cedar, persimmon, red oak, river birch, blueberry, elderberry, witch hazel, New Jersey tea, and serviceberry trees.
The Monmouth County Parks System also had a community outreach tent set up at the seedling giveaway. Their tent included several games for children to play, such as one where they had to match the skull with the animal it likely belonged to. They had two of these games set up for both aquatic and land animals. They also had a game where children could guess what kind of pelts they had on the table. They had fliers on the table as well that were filled with information about the parks in the Monmouth County Park System and different animals that call this region home.
The event took place one day after Arbor Day. According to Lisa Doud, the chair of the Howell Shade Tree Commission, this event was a much bigger success than other events they have had in the past.
She said they had over 300 plants to give away, which included several plants left over from their giveaway in the fall. Despite this, they were able to clear out all the plants they had to give away this time in a little over two hours after the event opened at 7 a.m. The event was supposed to go on until around noon, but since the commission already had people start to gather outside around 6:30 a.m., they had no issue offloading all of their stock and closing up early. Some of the leftover trees from last fall were used by the town as well.
“It’s important because more and more trees are getting cut down. We really want to counterbalance that by encouraging the community to plant more trees,” said Doud on the importance of being able to have an event like this.
In addition to the seedling giveaway, the Shade Tree Commission hosted a seminar before the giveaway to properly educate those who wanted to pick up a certain type of tree on how to take care of them properly.
The Shade Tree Commission will host another seedling giveaway event in the fall for those who could not attend this time around.
