The Village of Northport is set to celebrate its 3rd Arbor Day on Friday at 10 a.m. with the planting of a new tree at the Marina Park.
Elementary students from Northport Public School will gather with members of the public and the village tree committee to recognize the day. Northport Planning Commission and tree committee member Bob Newell has been helping to organize the event for the last few years, and said this year’s tree, a Swamp White Oak, was purchased by the late Jim McCord, and will be planted in memory of Myrn Steele.
“Jim told me many years ago the schools did celebrate Arbor Day on a regular basis, but that had gone by the wayside, but now this will be our third one getting this tradition restarted again,” Newell said. “It will be nice to see that and to celebrate this again and observe the day… the kids that show up at the event this year will live to see those trees lining the streets in years to come.”
There will be speakers like Newell, and Leelanau County resident Bob Stoewsand who has been reading relevant poems to honor Arbor Day since the village held their first ceremony in 2022. The students present will help to plant the tree at the site to wrap up the event. Newell said the Swamp White Oak is a long-lived large tree that will be very visible in the open area near the beach and will manage well next to a water table that’s a little higher.
“This functions as two things, one as an educational process for the next generation as well as one that reminds the current generation of the importance of doing something rather than just reading about the environmental degradation,” he said. “It also allows us to continue planting trees. We’ve been doing the cans and bottles (return), and we’ve raised something like $14,000 off of that effort since last July… Now we have a very good fund established that will keep us going even if we didn’t do anything more, we’d have three years worth of tree plantings.”
Newell said the village tries to put in about 15-20 trees a year maximum because they have to take care of them for three years before the plantings are really established and can flourish on their own. The first year is the most critical as the new trees need people to monitor and water them. Northport Department of Public Works (DPW) staff assists Newell and other volunteers with ongoing tree maintenance.
Looking ahead, Newell explained that they have about two years worth of sites selected for tree plantings so they have an idea of what they’re going to do the following year. Through the village, community members can sign up for an adopt-a-tree program to also help in maintaining these plantings for periods of a year or two.
“It’s nice to have community involvement, and when people take care of a tree, they have an attachment to it,” he said. “This year we’ve lost about 12 or 15 of the large old maple trees, so we’re planning on replacing them with a variety of street trees like oaks and other types of maples so if a disease comes through they won’t wipe them all out at one time… Like they say, ‘the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago or today.’” Newell said he hopes the students and those that are present on Friday are instilled with the knowledge that another lifeform, such as the trees abundant in the county, is dependent on them.
“There’s more than just humanity on this planet. No species will survive alone, we’re all interdependent, and that’s a lot of a lesson for a child to learn, but at the moment, we’d like them to know that you don’t just read about trees, you’ve actually planted one,” he said.
For more information about Northport’s Arbor Day celebration or the adopt-a-tree program, people can contact Newell at his number 313-204-8312 or at his email address bobceng@att. net.
