To maintain its 41 years of being part of Tree City USA, the city of Manitowoc celebrated Arbor Day yesterday.
The day was founded in 1872 in Nebraska after J. Sterling Morton, a tree enthusiast, wanted to dedicate a day to planting trees.
It became a state holiday in 1874 and then became a national holiday in the 1970s with help from President Richard Nixon.
In Manitowoc, students from Bethany Lutheran School met at the Manitowoc Senior Center to ask and answer questions from Mayor Justin Nickels and learn about what the city does with its trees.
They also heard the reading of Dr. Suess’s The Lorax before going to Halverson Park to place woodchips around a newly planted Swamp White Oak tree.
City Forester Al Rehme was on hand to help and answer questions as well.
He says the students need to be ready for their future.
“We want to get them into the mood that they want to plant trees, let them know how important it is to plant trees, and what the trees do for their generation,” he explained to Seehafer News.
He says the city can plant about 150 trees a year, but they also must take out some that are seen under the category of the 4 D’s: dead, diseased, dying, and damaged.
Rehme says the Emerald Ash Borer has wreaked havoc on Ash Trees around the city since it came in 2002, the city took down about 50-60 a week in the last month.
“Right now, for the city, we’ve reached our peak for removals, and we’re getting toward the tail end of the removals from the terrace, between the sidewalk and curb,” he described. “We’re almost done with that portion of it, but we have a few parks to go to yet. Of course, we have replanting to do after that.”
He says the city has been replanting more Emerald Trees since they found a batch resistant to Dutch Elm Disease, which destroyed those trees in the city around the 1970s.
Following the events, each student took home a small tree that could be planted in a small pot and eventually taken somewhere to be planted in the ground.