St. Charles Marks Arbor Day

On a bright, sunny Friday afternoon that stood in stark contrast to the rain and flooding just a week ago, local dignitaries and residents gathered in Lincoln Park for the 15^th annual St. Charles Arbor Day celebration.

St. Charles Tree Commission co-Chairman Bill Bangs welcomed the crowd who turned out for a little bit of music, speeches and awards. The day’s focus on trees coincided with the St. Charles City Council Government Services Committee’s initial approval earlier this week of a $500,000 contract with Skyline Tree Service to remove 1,000 ash trees, the last phase of an effort to remove 3,600 trees infested with the emerald ash borer.

How does tree removal play in to Arbor Day?

Because the other part of the city emerald ash borer fight is to plant 700 new trees this spring, an another 700 more in the fall, the first steps toward replacing the 3,600 trees that have been lost to the invasive green beetle from Asia.

The city of St. Charles has been designated a Tree City U.S.A. for 15 years, among other awards and is intent on preserving that legacy, the day’s speakers said.

Phil Graf, with Graf’s Tree Care Service, which has been working with the city on combatting the emerald ash borer infestation, said the steps St. Charles is taking now to replant after removing so many ash trees will help prepare it against future disasters such as the beetle infestation.

Pointing to the cycle of tree disasters seen in this nation, Graf said the United States appears to get hit cyclically, about every 30 or 40 years, losing enormous numbers of trees each time.

In the 1930s, the American chestnut blight destroyed thousands upon thousands of trees that communities had grown used to depending upon. Then, in the 1960s, Dutch elm disease swept the nation, killing off huge numbers of the elm trees that had been planted to replace the chestnuts killed in that blight.

Today, it is the emerald ash borer attacking the ash trees planted to replace the elm trees lost to disease.

Graf said the 700 trees the city will plant this spring, and the next 700 in the fall, will represent 47 different species of trees, including oaks, five hybridized species of elm, Kentucky coffee, hackberry and many others. The diversity of species, he said, will help ensure that St. Charles is not hit as hard when, perhaps 40 years from now, the next natural tree disaster strikes, nearly wiping out one species of tree.

The diversity of species, he said, will help ensure St. Charles’ future is sustainable in terms of its tree landscape.

Also during Friday’s ceremony, the city singled out for honors:

Fourth-graders at Richmond Intermediate School, for whom the Tree Commission planted a white oak tree to mark their completion of a course of study about trees, which included the preparation by students of a series of videos on the important of trees.

The Kane County Farm Bureau for planting a grove of 13 trees it calls its Centennial Grove, which was planted to mark the bureau’s 100^th anniversary.

Local writers — student and adult — and local student artists for their essays and artworks honoring trees.

The nation began observing Arbor Day 1872, after J. Sterling Morton, the father of Morton Arboretum founder Joy Morton, proposed an annual holiday to plant trees on Nebraska’s windswept plains. The annual commemoration now is observed in all 50 states and many other nations as well.

Related:

• April 25, 2013: Next Phase of St. Charles Emerald Ash Borer Fight Advances
• June 25, 2012:
• May 31, 2012: City Gears Up to Continue Fight Against Emerald Ash Borer
• May 29, 2012: Agenda for Tonight's Government Services Committee Meeting
• May 23, 2012: City to Issue Bonds to Fight Emerald Ash Borer
• Aug. 14, 2011: New Weapon in Emerald Ash Borer Detection Found
• June 28, 2011: City of St. Charles Participating in Second Year of Emerald Ash Borer Insecticide Program

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