SCHENECTADY - There’s a big difference between simply planting a tree and helping it thrive.
A small group of master gardeners with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Schenectady County wants to help people with the latter.
The volunteers formed a tree committee earlier this year to help county residents better understand how to care for their trees and the benefits of doing so, both mental and financial.
When asked, Melissa MacKinnon, a longtime master gardener who is also on the new committee, has no trouble listing an impressive number of those benefits.
“It provides shade in the summer, filters water — especially [helpful] with some of the areas around here — and offers the ability to have some of that rainfall taken in by plants instead of just running into our sewers,” MacKinnon said.
In Glenville, trees have provided a $5,551,967 benefit from stormwater mitigation, carbon dioxide uptake and air pollution removal, according to i-tree, a website that gives a quantitative and detailed look at the ways trees are benefiting certain regions.
In Schenectady, that figure is $844,436 and in Niskayuna it’s $131,078. Also in Niskayuna, trees shade an area equivalent to approximately 199 professional football fields. The committee recently designed bookmarks breaking down the data and plan to give them out at local events.
“There's a lot of interesting research on the mental health benefits of even just looking out of a window and seeing a tree that helps us to calm our minds and reduce stress, reduce fatigue,” said MacKinnon, who is also the farms outreach coordinator for Sycamore Collaborative, formerly SiCM.
MacKinnon also noted that property values tend to be higher when mature trees are present, and trees also aid in biodiversity, providing homes for hundreds of species of bugs and birds.
“What I've been learning more recently that is just stunning is how many other forms of life trees also provide a harbor for,” MacKinnon said.
It’s part of what made her want to delve more into the world of trees and tree care. She’s helped to plan an Arbor Day celebration, with tree experts who will help teach how to care for and identify trees. The event will run from 5-7 p.m. on April 26, at Vale Urban Farm’s fruit and nut orchard.
Sycamore Collaborative will host the event, working with the city of Schenectady, Schenectady Soil and Water, and Environmental Clearinghouse of Schenectady, among other groups.
“We'll be talking about the pollinator plants, trees, tree care. We'll be putting down compost and then mulch and talking about how to mulch trees. We'll have people there doing tree identification,” MacKinnon said.
They’ll also field tree-related questions from the community. It’s something volunteers do year-round with the master gardener hotline. Oftentimes the issues stem from the way homeowners care for their lawns.
“If somebody calls the Schenectady master gardener hotline and they're worried because their tree is in decline, we're going to be asking them what's been happening over the past seven years to that space, because often trees will die very slowly,” MacKinnon said. “So some homeowners, or even the people in charge of the streets who are taking care of the trees, they don't realize that what they're doing for years is leading to the decline and the death of the tree. It doesn't just happen. Most trees die because of things that humans do.”
That includes volcano mulching, one of the most common mistakes MacKinnon sees.
“They just pile on mulch and they pile it up the trunk of the tree so it resembles a volcano,” MacKinnon said. “What happens is that mulch is actually against a really important part of the tree, and it's where the trunk becomes the roots that go into the ground.”
The mulch cuts off access to air and sunlight, and makes the tree more susceptible to disease.
Another common mistake is to plant a tree in an area where it’s competing with turfgrass.
“From an evolutionary perspective, those [tree] roots are competing with grass that has evolved to outcompete tree roots, which is why if you just plant a new tree in the middle of a grassy lawn you're really setting that tree up for a lot of stress and possibly really not much growth, because it can't compete with those roots,” MacKinnon said.
She hopes to prevent such issues with public education through events like the Arbor Day celebration, which is in its second year.
“I'm cautiously optimistic [that] this will be the year that we start to really build enough momentum with people who really want to learn and want to do the work,” MacKinnon said.
Leading up to Arbor Day, Schenectady County plans to give away 1,200 free saplings to residents. The saplings will be available at nine Schenectady County Public Library branches through Friday, during regular library hours, or until supplies run out.
The saplings, which are Eastern Redbud, White Flowering Dogwood, and Serviceberry, will be distributed in groups of two and will also include a planting guide.