STEVE JASIECKI/John Pitts, Anthony Edge of the Public Works Department and Bob Blumberg, all members of Sustainable Margate, finished planting a black gum tree in the Tree Identification Park.
By STEVE JASIECKI
MARGATE – Sustainable Margate celebrated Arbor Day 2024 by planting another tree in the Tree Park adjacent to the Ann Pancoast Dog Park.
Every year Arbor Day is formally celebrated on the last Friday of April to encourage the planting, upkeep and preservation of trees. Arbor Day serves as a reminder of the important benefits trees provide. They clean the air, provide shade, mask city noise, cool the climate, absorb water, provide habitat, mitigate the heat island effect and sequester carbon just to name a few of their benefits.
The tree planted, a black gum (Nyssa sylvatica), was added to the list of trees that were planted in the tree park that was started on Arbor Day 2021. The idea of the Tree Park was to establish an area where visitors can come to see the differences in the variety of tree species. Identification plaques were placed at the base of the trees to identify each tree. It’s going to be a while before the trees reach maturity, but eventually benches can be installed where people can come and relax under the canopy of trees and listen to the sounds of nesting birds and enjoy a quiet moment with nature.
In addition to the tree planting, Sustainable Margate gave away 25 bayberry and five beach plumb shrubs during the Margate Cherry Blossom Festival 2 weeks ago. The team encourages residents to plant native trees and plants which will support the diversity of wildlife that depend on them.
Planting trees is a way of showing that you believe in the future. The individual that plants a tree may never see it reach its full potential. However, his/her children and children’s children will be able to reap the rewards of the simple act of planting a tree.
The first Arbor Day was held in Nebraska City, Nebraska on April 10, 1872. With much enthusiasm it soon spread to every State in the Union. It wasn’t until 1970 that President Richard Nixon declared Arbor Day a national holiday.
On April 15, 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt, a supporter of the Conservation Movement, issued an “Arbor Day Proclamation to the School Children of the United States,” telling them:
“It is well that you should celebrate your Arbor Day thoughtfully, for within your lifetimes the Nation’s need of trees will become serious. We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship; but in your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed.”
