Arbor Day, also referred to as “tree planting day”, is a secular holiday many observe the LAST FRIDAY OF APRIL. Southern cities and states are apt to move their tree plantings to an earlier date.
Are there any big tree planting events, celebrations, civic events, honoring this date in your areas?
The National Arbor Day foundation is in Nebraska and established 150 years ago.
Here we hear about earth day but I have not heard of Arbor Day. I have heard of parents planting trees for the kids they have though. I would presume you would run out of space for trees eventually if you planted every year. I have seen the Arbor Day foundation sells trees but they will not ship certain trees to where I live. Kind of hard to have one day for planting trees nation wide because it is too hot or too cold other places. Right now if I went to a lot of places in Arizona it would be baking right now, Minnesota is still having frosts and it is just quite nice right now here for example. Some places don’t have a final frost until around June.
Thanks for the reminder 
In say kill a tree for arbor day
A invasive one.
A message to plant a tree is not a hard message
A message to Grow plants responsible is a harder message to get through to people.
I remember watching a essay video on the plant a tree topic for the climate. They said a few things in that video. The first thing they said was we can never get to the amount of trees that was at the start and having space for people. With the amount of people we need to support and house it is just simply not possible. The second point that stuck with me was a decaying tree will also mess up the environment. In other words planting a tree is not enough. You need to maintain the tree to retain the air cleansing features of a tree humans and other living beings breath out. Otherwise you are hurting the environment.
Earth day is something like Arbor Day? I dug up a Norway maple seedling and planted a serviceberry and two hazelnuts. Win! And, it was more than a seeding. Root and base of the truck was about 2” diameter. Apparently, people have been cutting it back for awhile. But it needed to be dug out.
Sadly, I still have the mother Norway maple. It seems to be too close to the house to be cheap to take down. I also think it’s going to be shading where I just put in my veggie garden. So maybe I’ll be more motivated this summer.
Some things “they” say you have to just let pass and not agree or disagree–unless you’re a expert yourself you simply can’t vouch for nor criticize. (But, none of us should ever accept things “they” say as the complete truth on a topic–I have some old articles from high school and “they” said global cooling a real liklihood.)
And just months ago “they” said a bunch things about COVID that turned out not to be the truth.
Life and death, of all living organisms, are part of the cycle. Everything goes back to the dirt it came from. The theories about carbon sequestration and such are theories…for as the tree seed sprouts, it begins to collect carbon from air and soil (along / other minerals)…and as it dies and decays, it goes to a different state. But the total amount in existence is constant.
Some of those maples haven’t thrived like our native maples.
There are portions of the earth that have more trees than ever before. Mostly in the Great Plains and irrigated yards in the deserts of AZ, NM, CA. More trees mean more moisture in the air.
And that means bigger storms and higher rainfall rates.
As people take note of Arbor Day, let’s hope less Bradford pears and maples and more variety of species are among the plantings more folks make this year. An oak or a hickory or a pecan, or even a pine…
some of our plant disease and insect epidemics are due to too much concentration of one kind of
tree.
Norway maples are considered invasive in many area of the US. They are aggressive seeders, out compete others. And are very dense, so they don’t even give a dappled shade. Basically, a very undesirable tree.
I’m a member in good standing of the Nationl Arbor Day Foundation. Worthy organization.
Only reason I mentioned the carbon thing with this was that is generally the thought process. A good example is I used to get papers saying go paperless and sign up for a certain kind of account and we will plant a tree for every account you make. There was a article about callery rootstock today and the Bradford pear with how invasive it is. My mother and grandmother are freaking on because I have pears on it and many don’t like it. What I will say about Bradford pears and the callery pear is it has it’s place as a rootstock. I would never grow the Bradford pear as a non rootstock though. What I will say is maples that produce good amounts of maple syrup don’t thrive all places. The only maple that thrives here in fact is a native maple. Most maples are just there for ornamental value anyway because from what I have heard it takes something like 40 years to be able to tap a maple tree. By that point I would be 65 and I am only 25 now even. That is assuming you can even tap a maple. I think there are maples you can’t even tap.
I suspect you can probably tap any maple…at least once it gets some girth to it. But, it does take a bunch 0f years…some I planted in late 70’s through 80’s can be tapped.
Red or silver maples are roughly half as sweet as sugar maples…so takes more gallons of sap to make syrup.
Birch and.walnuts also can be used to make sweet syrup.
Anyone know of other trees that I’ve not mentioned that people take the sap and boil down for syrup?
Arbor Day became more recognized nationwide during Nixon. The Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act and the creation of the EPA.
It was during this time that i was a young kid. Teachers talked about it in school and Americans were still interested in our country. I think trees were pretty cheap back then and i remember me and my dad planting trees on every Arbor Day. I was pretty young but i think the US forest service posted things in post offices and things like that and you could order trees.
Your question is it celebrated? I dont think so. Arbor Day has fallen into the category of Memorial Day… just another holiday to cook hot dogs and hamburgers. I bet a random poll of 100 citizens under the age of 30 wouldnt even know what the word Arbor means. Probably Pearl Arbor Day?
My state of WV just shut down our only State Tree Nursery last year. Sad.
Im not sure if teachers talk about it in school or parents plant trees with their kids anymore… or the Forest Service making trees available like they did. But thats how it works. You have to get people interested in it…mainly kids.
Yes…children…but you know there’s a bunch of $&!% they spend those hours teaching kids these days (*stuff I can’t mention or it’ll get removed by moderators).
Tree planting is a good activity…particularly in areas that used to have trees and they’ve been bulldozed or clearcut or the land has been paved.
I mostly hear of Arbor Day these days from the foundation’s own emails. Earth Day was really quiet as well. That’s the one that used to be big around here as there is a University in the next county. It has grown too big now to maintain a sense of community, but their were probably tables on the campus for celebratory education and doing-without-doing opportunities (raising awareness). I’ve put something like 100 trees/shrubs in the ground on my property and taken down a couple, so I don’t feel like I need to plant one to commemorate a holiday or raise my own awareness. I quite likely will be planting a couple next Saturday just because of timing, and may or may not remember what day it is.
Interestingly, I have several Arbor Day trees in pots a former neighbor gave me that I will be passing on to another neighbor today to plant, and I gave a packet of ten trees I told ADF not to send me to a coworker a couple weeks ago. So even though the holiday is not big in my parts, the foundation it spawned remains an active part of the routine.
Ultimately, remember that living things want to live and struggle to find a way. Look for the ways to enhance it in your environment, and look for the ways to have what you think you need with the least amount of fighting against it’s efforts. If a dedicated holiday will help you reflect on that, or teach those lessons to your kids, then it is well worth commemorating.
Earth Day, Arbor Day… there is also another thing going on called The REPLANT Act which became law last year. (1.5 billion trees to be planted).
I dont like the fact that the trees/shrubs at arborday.org are the same price as big box stores and online nurseries.
I’ve joined twice and got the “free” trees for doing so. Tiny trees with low survival rates. Won’t be joining again.
I plant hundreds of trees every year without belonging to any groups. I suppose if ADF gets young people interested in planting trees it’s a good thing.
I’ve ordered a couple from them that I have been happy with. The “free trees” selection are usually things I do not want, and have to work to keep alive if I am going to find somebody who does. I just made a neighbor very happy with the ones I had, along with the ones I found volunteered in my garden bed. The volunteer trees were local and a lot stronger. To be fair, the volunteers were in the ground, and I didn’t work all that hard to keep the Arbor day ones alive after potting them up in the garden.
The Arbor Day Foundation isn’t GOD…they are trying to get people to take care of Creation, though.
