The Secret to Growing Champion Trees? Garden Club Talk Offers Tips

The Edgewood Garden Club will dish some secrets and other tips for keeping trees healthy and long lasting at an upcoming open meeting at the William H. Hall Free Library.

On Wednesday, Oct. 14 at 6:30 p.m., a program by the Rhode Island Tree Council will shed light on how “champion trees” come to be and feature pictures of some of the significant trees throughout Rhode Island.

These “Big Trees” have been chronicled in a series of calendars produced by the Tree Council. In recent years, the Council has partnered with the Cranston Neighborhood Tree Planting Program to encourage homeowners in the city to plant new trees in their yards and maintain existing ones.

Trees, in addition to enhancing landscapes, provide shade for natural cooling of homes and yards and shelter for birds and beneficial insects. Questions from the audience will be taken at the program’s end.

The meeting is free and open to the public. There will a short business meeting before the presentation begins. Light refreshments will be served beginning at 6 p.m.

The Edgewood Garden Club was formed in 1933. Its membership, about 70 men and women strong, draws from the Edgewood, Pawtuxet, and Gaspee Plateau neighborhoods of Cranston and Warwick, but some members live in other areas of the two cities.

It promotes gardening education and environmentally sustainable practices, and local civic beautification efforts. Its current Cranston projects include support for the World War I Memorial at Grand Avenue, and the E.S. Rhodes School raised bed gardening project. It also maintains gardens at the Village Playground on Commercial Street and the Monument Garden at Stillhouse Cove.

The William H. Hall Memorial Library is located at 1825 Broad Street in Edgewood.

Photo: A huge Black oak located in the Walnut Hill section of Woonsocket was recently crowned the state champion Black oak by the RI Tree Council. Champion trees are the biggest trees of their kind based on a point measurement system. The Black oak is a towering specimen measuring 90 feet in height. It also has a 14’ 10” trunk circumference and a 100 foot crown spread, good enough for a 293 total point score.

The Champion Black oak was discovered by tree steward Harold Monroe of North Providence, while he was on a trip to visit friends in Bellingham, MA.

The sylvan beauty can be found growing in the rear of the Ballou Home For the Aged, 60 Mendon Road, Woonsocket, RI. For more information on champion trees go to www.ritree.org or e-mail RITree at ritree@ritree.org.