Above: The Town is encouraging residents to celebrate a love for trees by attending their ceremony and/or supporting efforts to plant more trees along public ways. (image from Facebook)
Southborough has joined other Towns across the country in officially designating Friday, April 26th as Arbor Day.* To celebrate, the Town will hold a Tree Planting Ceremony. It is also using the holiday to encourage the community to support the new “Tree Planting Program”.
The “first annual” planting ceremony is set to take place on Friday morning, 10:00 am – rain or shine – behind the Town House – near the St Mark’s Street entrance to the Southborough Historical Museum. The Town will plant a 2-3 year old native maple tree donated by Dan Garcia of Shrubs and Trees, Inc.
The Planning Board is hoping that this will be just the start of trees contributed to the town landscape. As promised when the board presented its tree bylaw to Town Meeting voters, the board is pursuing making Southborough a Tree City USA. The celebration of Arbor Day is one component. They are also inviting the public to help populate the town with more native trees along public ways.
The Tree Planting Program invites property owners to plant a native species tree on their own property but within 20 feet of the street/public way. To be included in the program, the tree’s location and species must be coordinated with the Tree Warden.
The property owner will be responsible for the planting plus any needed maintenance or removal. (The Town of Southborough Street Tree Guidelines are available here.)
Southborough still isn’t officially a Tree City. These are some of the steps the Town is taking before it applies for that designation. For more information about Tree City USA click on links to the program website and the state’s info sheets.
If you are thinking about planting a tree in your yard, here are some benefits and tips from the Arbor Day Foundation, the organization behind the Tree City program. (Click to enlarge.)
If you sign up for the Town’s program, the Planning Department or Tree Warden will follow up with you to coordinate your participation. To register, click here. You can also make a financial donation to the program for the Tree Warden to coordinate plantings in town.
In looking up info for this post, I also discovered another way you can support planting trees – though not specifically in our town. The Foundation posted:
During the month of April, every time you use #arborday on social media you plant a tree [up to 25,000] thanks to our friends at Mary Kay.
*The Arbor Day proclamation signed by the Board of Selectmen promised to:
urge all citizens to celebrate Arbor Day and to support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands, and Further, We urge all citizens to plant trees to gladden the heart and promote the well-being of this and future generations
Updated (4/25/19 2:38 pm): I originally forgot to mention that the event is “rain or shine”. Given the forecast, that’s an important detail.
