Earth Day Celebration 2008

[Photo: Several hundred ponderosa pine trees were loaded into trucks, hauled to the naturalized forest in the WSU Arboretum, and planted by volunteers to help celebrate Earth Day 2008 at Washington State University.]

About 20 student and community volunteers met at the site of the future WSU Arboretum and Botanical Gardens on April 22, 2008, to help celebrate Earth Day at Washington State University by planting several hundred ponderosa pine trees in the arboretum forest. The trees were grown in containers at the nursery at the E.H. Steffen Center adjacent to the arboretum for several years and were in urgent need of planting.



[Photo: Graduate students (L-R) Scott Leach, Erim Gomez, and Len Zeoli volunteered to help organize the Earth Day event and fueled up on a hearty breakfast of chocolate doughnuts before planting trees.]

The ponderosa pines were mixed into the existing naturalized forest on the west edge of the arboretum. This 70-year-old experimental forest began as a series of test tree and shrub growth plots by the USDA Plant Materials Center, but has become naturalized over the years. This naturalized forest has been proposed to become a wildlife sanctuary in the future arboretum and will contain natural trails, a bird observatory, and a pond. The forest will also become home to collections of native plants that are restored in habitats within the forest.



[Photo: Student and community volunteers helped plant several hundred trees in the Arboretum forest in celebration of Earth Day 2008 at Washington State University.]

We would like to thank all of the volunteers who came out and spent a few hours working in the arboretum. It was a beautiful day and the future forest in the arboretum will be all the more beautiful because of their work.