Arbor Day celebrates tree plantings around our nation

Roger Boddaert

Special to the Village News

The first Arbor Day celebration began in Nebraska on April 20, 1872. On that day, one million trees were planted throughout Nebraska. Prizes were offered to those counties that planted the most trees on that day.

It all began with J. Sterling Morton, an early settler to the Nebraska territory, who purchased barren prairie land to settle with his family.

At that time, the prairie had few trees and without them, the settlers lacked windbreaks, fuel, building materials, and shade from the hot summer sun.

Mr. Morton's vision began small, but his ideas of planting trees became contagious over time, and the idea of planting trees for the good of our globe grew and has prospered ever since.

Today, Arbor Day plantings happen all across the nation, with different planting dates depending on varied seasonal weather and temperature.

The level of involvement and support for tree plantings has been overwhelming, making a tremendous impact on forests and communities in our country and around the world.

From the replanting of forests after wildfires, devasting floods, storms, or hurricanes, the Arbor Day Foundation has always been there to help, and now it's 50 years since the Arbor Day Foundation began.

With the beginnings of urban forestry, a green wave was born as an essential component and blended into city planning nationwide.

Cities across the nation realized that trees are a good thing and are needed to green our towns, the asphalt jungles, and trees could help cool these urban environments. For trees benefit all of us through beautification and cooling our homes and cities, increasing our property values, lowering crime rates, and so much more.

The economic footprint from establishing tree planting agencies, which offered job creations, is now a part of city budgets in the planting and preserving trees over time.

More than 500,000 people are employed in urban forestry activities, and their annual sales and employment are worth $64 billion.

The trees across America are working 24/7 providing a wide range of benefits for all of us.

Some of those benefits that trees give us:

· Trees help clean the air by taking in the bad and putting out clean air

· Lower temperatures when adequately placed about our homes

· They provide us with lumber, give us food to eat, and cellulose

· Trees help build our homes and heat our hearth

· They cut noise pollution through the canopy of their leaves

· They give shelter to animals and their habitats all around the world

· Trees provide us with hope, inspiration, and horticultural therapy

· From toothpicks and cradles for babies to our final resting box

The Arbor Day Farms in Nebraska maintains a 260-acre property of conservation, an arboretum for ongoing research with over 150,000 visitors yearly participating in conferences and educational classes.

I received a prestigious national award back in the early 90s for my commitment to the environment and tree planting efforts.

I contacted our local Del Rey Avocado Company, which shipped 200 of our local avocados as a handout at that award luncheon to spread a little cheer from our famous Fallbrook avocado trees.

At that conference, I showed the Fallbrook Community Action kit, an educational video on how to get started in planting trees in any community. The kit has now been distributed across the nation to many young tree-planting groups in America to show them how to get started.

The first monumental tree-planting here in Fallbrook started when the Fallbrook Land Conservancy launched its first tree planting event in the early 90s.

On that crisp fall Sunday morning, 750 volunteers from all around Southern California came to town and planted 435 native trees at the Los Jilqueros Preserve on South Mission Road. And that opened the flood gates for the tree-huggers, and they were off and planting. It's been a non-stop movement since that day some 30 years ago.

After that motivating day, the Master Treescape Plan was created, and now over 3,000 new trees dot our village streets, parks, roadways, schools, homes, freeways, and the greening of Fallbrook has not stopped yet.

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the next best time is today."

Roger Boddaert, a certified I.S.A. arborist, can be contacted for consultations at 760-728-4297.