NEWS FLASH: Arbor Day 2024, Florida
The following is by my friend, the author and naturalist, Peggy Sias Lantz.
If you are reading this on Friday, January 19, it is Arbor Day in Florida.
As you may have read, the rules are different here. Arbor Day throughout the nation is celebrated on April 22, but the best time for planting trees in Florida is during its cooler season, so the third Friday in January is Florida’s designated Arbor Day. Florida’s designation for Arbor Day began in 1886.
The origin of Arbor Day
A Nevada newspaperman named J. Sterling Morton proposed a special tree-planting day and set the date for April 10, 1872, calling it Arbor Day. Prizes were offered to counties and individuals for the largest number of trees planted that day, and it is estimated that over a million trees were planted in Nebraska that first Arbor Day. By 1920, more than 45 states and territories were celebrating trees every year on that date. National Arbor Day has now been set for the last Friday in April, but many states observe Arbor Day on different dates throughout the year based on best tree planting times in their area.
The Arbor Day Foundation
The Arbor Day Foundation gives a Tree City designation to communities that meet four standards: it must have a tree board or department, a tree care ordinance, a community forestry program, and an Arbor Day observance. The program started in 1976 and now recognizes over 3,600 tree cities in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
Oakland is a Tree City. So is Orange County, Orlando, Apopka, Clermont, and Windermere. (Winter Garden is not listed.)
The Bloom & Grow Garden Society and the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation hosted a walking tour of Winter Garden’s heritage trees this morning to celebrate Arbor Day. Along the route from City Hall to Lake Apopka and back, are 56 Heritage Trees, each labeled with information.
Apopka, Minneola, and Windermere are celebrating by giving away trees. Most of them will be native to Florida and will be large, hurricane-resistant shade trees, especially live oaks, which are host to nearly 400 insect species that birds feed their nestlings.
In Apopka, trees are being given away at Alonzo Williams Park, 225 M A Board Street.
In Minneola: Minneola Place, 301 S. Main Avenue.
In Windermere: the Town Square, 520 Main Street.
The Arbor Day Foundation plants trees in fire-ravaged forests, cut-over logged areas, bull-dozed areas, and urban streetscapes, both in our country and elsewhere. They are reforesting the Amazon, Madagascar, and other areas where bird and mammal species are endangered because of destructive logging or fires.
For a $25 donation, they’ll send you some trees or plant a bunch of trees somewhere else in your honor. They’ll send you a newsletter about what they’re doing and a booklet on how to prune your trees properly. Find out more at arborday.org, info@arborday.org, or Arbor Day Foundation, 211 N. 12th St., Lincoln NE 68508.
I’ve been donating a small amount for years. The chief executive, Dan Lambe, said in the recent newsletter, “No matter where you live, trees matter. They are central to our ability to thrive on this planet.” Plants a tree today.
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Thanks for reading!
Your writer on the wing,
Charlene
