Springtime and that means planting days are on at Point Creek Park in Newton. Volunteers are needed to help plant 2000 tree seedlings. Although planting 2,000 trees may sound like strenuous work, the holes will be pre-dug, and help is also needed at the front table sorting and dipping trees, so the work will not be all that strenuous. Volunteers are needed May 3, 4, 5 Friday – Sunday from 8:00 – 5:00 pm. Weather permitting. Planting will take place Every day until all are planted.
Anyone interested in volunteering should contact Ron Schaper at 920 489 4330 or email pointcreekpark@gmail.com. Volunteers should bring: work gloves, (garden trowel / small shovel, hammer, kneeling pad). Teams of 2-3 individuals with buckets of tree saplings to place trees into a pre-dug hole, cover roots with soil, drive a stake into the ground with a hammer and attach a protective tube to a stake. Point Creek Natural Area Management Team and Lakeshore Natural Resource Partnership (LNRP) are sponsoring this significant tree planting.
Funds used to purchase trees are from the proceeds of logging and a US Fish and Wildlife Service Coastal Program Grant provided by LNRP. The goal is to convert the existing 39 acre pine plantation of Point Creek Park to a Mature Northern Hardwood Forest present on the south side of Point Creek on land owned by UWGB. Eventually, it will become like the 25 acre Old Growth (virgin) Forest at Lakeshore Technical College, which represents 3% of Old Growth Forests remaining in Wisconsin. That underscores the importance of this project. Logging Point Creek Park this past summer thinned the pines and opened clear areas for planting. All the different tree species at their relative ratios will be planted. Composition of trees planted will mirror those of a mature forest. It is anticipated this selection of trees will bypass several hundred years of succession and speed the process of attaining a climax forest. Some active forest management will also be necessary. In 30 to 50 years a canopy develops, and trees begin producing seeds. The canopy’s shade controls All of what grows. It will shade out invasives, introduced forest flowers will spread, and the second generation of trees will begin a self-sustaining Northern Hardwood Forest.
