Joyce Kilmer’s most famous poem, “Trees” ends with couplet:
“Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.”
The Lowndes County Soil and Water Conservation District won’t be making any trees, but are making them available this week to the public at large and Feb. 15 to third-graders throughout the county.
On Thursday, beginning at 8:30 a.m., the LCSWCD will distribute 60 bundles of pine and hardwood seedlings free of charge on a first-come, first-serve basis before distributing 500 pine seedlings during the week of Feb. 15-19 to schools across the county.
“This is something we’ve been doing for years and years,” said Lori Chiasson, LCSWCD’s district technician. “It’s a state-wide program that each district participates in, which means we will be giving aways thousands of trees all over the state.”
The bundles available for pick-up Thursday at the LCSWCD’s office at 2282 MLK Jr. Drive, will include a loblolly pine, a redbed, a pignut hickory, a laurel oak and a cherry-bark oak. The seedlings are about a foot tall.
“These are all trees that grow well in our area,” Chiasson said. “Every year, we try to offer a variety of different trees from the nursery we used in Florida.”
Each year, Lowndes County Master Gardeners volunteer to help separate, color-code and bundle the trees.
“We have an information pamphlet to identify each seedling by color code,” Chiasson said. “It gives a little information about the tree.”
Julie Holman, vice-president of the Lowndes Master Gardeners, said assisting the LCSWCD with the project serves two purposes.
“First, we want to do anything we can to encourage people to plant trees, flowers and shrubs,” Holman said. “But for us, we use this as part of the service hours we need. We have to have 12 service hours a year to keep our national master gardener status.”
During the week of Feb. 15, which follows Arbor Day (Feb. 12), the LCSWCD and the Mississippi State Extension Service, will visit schools to educate third-graders on the important roles trees play in the ecosystem.
“We go around to all the schools, talk to them about trees and give them a pine seedling to take home with them, which they love,” said Lowndes County Extension Service agent Reid Nevins. “We won’t be able to do the talks at a lot of the schools because of COVID this year, but we’ll still be dropping off the seedlings for the kids at their schools.”
Chiasson said the kids like the idea of planting something that will endure throughout their lifetime.
“Some of these trees we are giving out will grow really fast and the laurel oak can grow as high as 100 feet,” Chiasson said.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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