Water the Trees!

The City has put out yet another urgent plea for residents to please consider watering the street trees, especially the newly planted ones, and we in Kensington have quite a few of those. Newly planted trees need a lot of water while the roots establish themselves and thus are more at risk. Here is what you can do to help:

• Water each young tree 15-20 gallons once a week between May and October (that’s 3-4 large buckets).
• Using a hand cultivator, carefully loosen the top 2-3 inches of soil to alleviate compaction and help water and air reach the roots.
• Do not dig any deeper or use large tools. These will damage the tree roots.
• Water slowly so the water penetrates the soil and does not run off of the surface.
• Water at the soil level, not through the leaves of shrubs and groundcovers.
• If it rains one inch or more in a week’s time period, you do not need to water.

Additional suggestions include:

• Poke small holes at the bottom of a large trash can. Fill it with 15-20 gallons of water and leave the trash can next to the tree overnight.
• Ask building maintenance staff to water trees while they are hosing off sidewalks.
• Ask street vendors and merchants to dump water from their containers (coolers with melted ice or flower buckets) into nearby tree pits at the end of the day.
• Make sure water with detergent or bleach is dumped into the gutter, not the tree pit.

A new NYC Parks “Water the Street Trees of NY” public service announcement launches today in Times Square. The 30-second PSA runs at the end of each hour from Thursday, July 8 until Thursday, July 22. It can also be seen on NYC-TV, SNY, and NY1.

MillionTreesNYC is a cornerstone of Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC, a blueprint to fight global warming and create a more livable city. MillionTreesNYC is a joint initiative of the City of New York and New York Restoration Project, through which one million new trees will be planted and cared for throughout the five boroughs by 2017. For more information, visit www.milliontreesnyc.org.