Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Nicole Morales, 11, a fifth-grader from Bishop Elementary School, helps plant one of two new valley oak trees at Murphy Park in honor of Arbor Day.
Students get their hands dirty
Bishop Buds Junior Club plants two trees
By Jana Seshadri
A group of excited fifth-graders, representing the Bishop Buds Junior Garden Club, got down and dirty in Murphy Park, and this time with the approval of adults. The students, representing Bishop Elementary School, were helping the city celebrate Arbor Day in Sunnyvale by planting two valley oak trees in the park on March 7.
"I think it's very scientific because nature is very interesting," said fifth-grader Nandini Gopalan, 11.
"We learn about gardening in our club and do a lot of planting," added 11-year-old Nicole Morales.
The group was supervised by Judy Liegmann, fifth-grade teacher and Nellie Durand, gardening teacher.
Durand said the children are interested a and motivated by nature and are very eager to participate in science and gardening projects. Shoveling soil into the hole where the young oak stood, the young nature-lovers recounted their past experiences with planting shrubs and flowering plants in their little garden patch and their struggle to keep the slugs and bugs away from eating the young saplings.
"It's a terrific way to celebrate Arbor Day," said Lorne Wiser, city arborist for 12 years.
Nebraska City News Editor J. Stelling Morton first promoted the idea of Arbor Day-- "arbor" meaning tree in Latin--a day to celebrate trees, in 1872. With Morton's encouragement, residents of Nebraska commemorated the first Arbor Day by planting more than 1 million trees in communities and farms to provide shade, shelter, fruit, fuel and beauty. The idea caught on and spread countrywide. Now the National Arbor Day Foundation, a nonprofit organization with nearly a million members and the world's largest tree-planting environmental organization, provides more than 8 million trees for planting throughout the United States each year.
The actual date is determined by the best tree-planting time for the area, although traditionally it is celebrated each year on the last Friday in April.
"Sunnyvale has been [called] Tree City USA since 1988," Sunnyvale Mayor Fred Fowler said.
Fowler said he was happy to declare March 7 as Arbor Day in Sunnyvale, because it happens to be the birthday of Luther Burbank, a botanist who lived in Santa Rosa.
According to Wiser, last year a 250-year-old valley oak in Murphy Park had to be cut down because of a diseased branch. Another 200-year-old oak tree in the White Oaks complex at the intersection of Fair Oaks and McKinley avenues had to be cut down also because of age-related problems, he said.
"The new trees will replace them--at least in number," Wiser said.
The Quercus Lobata oak trees come with a heavy price tag, according to Robert Walker, Sunnyvale's director of parks and recreation. However, a few residents, like Conrad Garcia, who live along Sunnyvale Avenue, contributed a major portion of the money to buy the 36-inch box trees, which cost $325 apiece, Wiser said.
One of the largest oak trees in the world, the valley oak is a hardy tree, which handles flood and drought well and is resistant to oak root fungus.
So, it's never too late to stop and admire a tree. Or better still, plant one and help it grow.
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
