CLAY ROAD ESPLENADES TO GET 12,500 NEW TREES SATURDAY

By Ella Tyler

In honor of Arbor Day Houston, the Houston Parks and Recreation Department and Trees for Houston are organizing a planting of 12,500 trees on the Clay Road esplanades between Gessner and Blalock. The project needs help from 1,500 volunteers. The event is Saturday, January 24 beginning at 7:30 pm. With enough help, by noon, the esplanades will be a forest and workers will be enjoying refreshments.

Individual volunteers as well as families, groups, and business are welcome. Children are welcome but must be accompanied by a responsible adult. Volunteers must bring their own shovels, rakes and gloves. All volunteers, including children, must register and sign waiver forms prior to planting. For full details of the event, go online.

To volunteer, contact Gary Woods, Trees for Houston, at (281) 474-4507 or (281) 224-8162 or by e-mail at garykwoods@sbcglobal.net.

Other groups are also sending teams of volunteers. To join the Park People’s team, send an e-mail to dschenke@parkpeople.org.

In other tree news, Trees for Houston and BP are partnering to plant 320 oak trees at BP’s Westlake campus in the Energy Corridor. The first 150 were planted Saturday by more than 200 volunteers from BP, Barker’s Landing, and The Westside High. BP is also relocating mature oak trees from the site of a new building, according to Barry Ward, Trees for Houston’s executive director. “The company is also making a $220,000 donation to Trees for Houston that will allow us to buy more trees for planting in other parts of the city,” Ward said.

Arbor Day was started in 1872, by J. Sterling Morton, a newspaper editor in Nebraska. More than 130 years later, Arbor Day is celebrated in all 50 states and in numerous countries. In the US, National Arbor Day is held on the last Friday in April, but Houston’s Arbor Day celebration is held on the fourth Saturday in January so young trees have time to become established before summer.