Arbor Day festivities planned at Finch Arboretum

Tomorrow is Arbor Day in Spokane. This annual event celebrates the importance of trees in our urban and rural environment. Appropriately, Spokane’s celebration will be at Finch Arboretum where hundreds of different trees from all over the world grow on 56 acres.

This year’s celebration however is being marked with a very special event. At 12:30 p.m., local dignitaries, the public and the city’s urban forestry staff will plant a 2-inch caliper, 16-foot white ash tree in the ash grove at the Arboretum. The tree is a donation from Mount Vernon Gardens in Washington, D.C., and a product of the Champion Tree Program. The lineage of the tree is documented directly from the White Ash George Washington planted onMount Vernon more than 200 years ago.

According to Jim Flott, Spokane’s urban forester, Spokane’s George Washington Heritage Tree will be the only one of its kind west of the Rockies and one of only three trees total. The other two are planted at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and at the site of the Oklahoma City bombing in Oklahoma respectively to commemorate the tragic events there.

The Champion Tree Project is an effort to preserve the genetic heritage of some of America’s largest and oldest trees. The project was founded in 1996 by Michigan tree farmers David and Jared Milarch. According to the group’s Web site (www.championtreeproject.org), the goals of the project are to protect existing state and national champion trees, propagate them through genetic cloning and then plant the clones in public places around the country.

A champion tree is defined as the largest tree of its species as determined by combining measurements of trunk circumference, height and crown spread. The Milarchs have traveled all over the country, including the Inland Northwest documenting champion trees and collecting tissue samples to be used in the project.

Spokane was chosen as one of the sites for the white ash through the efforts of Flott.

“I was able to get this tree because I have worked with Mount Vernon Gardens director Dean Norton and others on the Champion Tree Project. I have been pushing real hard for the last year to get one (of the white ash) for namesake state of our first president,” says Flott, “They are real reluctant to give these out.”

In addition to the planting of the George Washington Heritage Tree, this Arbor Day will feature lots of other free activities for the whole family. There will be a number of local organizations providing information on recycling, making compost, planting trees and more. Special activities for kids include arts and crafts projects hosted by the Corbin Art Center and the planting of a garden.

The Arbor Day celebration will run from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. with the tree planting at 12:30 p.m. The Arboretum is located at the intersection of F Street and Sunset Highway. Arbor Day activities are free and will take place rain or shine.

Arbor Day originated with the vision of J. Sterling Morton, a Nebraska State Board of Agriculture member and later the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, to plant trees across the state of Nebraska. It was first observed on April 10, 1872, when more than a million trees were planted in the state. The idea of Arbor Day idea spread to neighboring states and within the next 20 years practically all states celebrated Arbor Day by planting trees. The tradition has continued to this day and still serves a reminder of the importance of trees in our environment.

A special thank-you note to Jim Flott.

Jim Flott, director of Spokane’s Urban Forest Program is leaving the city at the end of April to enter private forestry consulting. During his tenure here in Spokane, he oversaw the cleanup from the disastrous damage done to the city’s urban forest during the 1996 ice storm. He used the event to build awareness of the condition of the city’s trees and educate people on their care and maintenance.

In 1999 the City Council approved the Community Forestry Ordinance that formalized the urban forest program and led to the creation of street tree ordinances that now guide the planting and care of street and public trees in the city. Last year, Flott succeeded in achieving the status of a Tree City USA for Spokane.

Thank you Jim, for your dedication to one of Spokane’s greatest assets. Your hard work and forward thinking will be reflected in the trees around us for decades to come.