TWiG

Trees to Grow On

Trees to Grow On

Members of the BGC TWiG and Education committees convened at East Belfast Elementary School this morning to continue the Arbor Day celebration with a group of kindergarten and first-grade students. Three new trees–a tulip tree, a white oak, and a black gum–were purchased by the club to site on the bare and windy hill overlooking the road. The committees prepared the holes and added the trees, then the students shoveled the dirt back in, carefully tamped it down with their right-sized feet, and gave each tree a good soaking. Many of the students remarked that they’d never seen a tree…

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Wales Park Patch Forest

Members of the TWiG committee, led by the indefatigable Carol Herwig, have been busy this autumn clearing brush in the designated patch forest area of Wales Park. Culling over a thousand Norway maple seedlings by hand, girdling larger volunteer trees, and trimming low-growing and damaged branches on other trees kept the committee busy after meetings, but the work couldn’t have been completed without the help of Belfast Area High School students who volunteered time and labor as part of their hands-on learning in an environmental studies class. Park visitors will enjoy a safer landscape in the area where trees have…

Rotarians Meet TWiG

Rotarians Meet TWiG

TWiG Committee Chair and licensed arborist Carol Herwig and soil scientist and TWiG Committee super volunteer Fred Bowers gave a talk to the Belfast Rotary Club at their monthly lunch on Wednesday, December 4. Fred explained the iTree software the Committee uses to inventory trees, while Carol described the overall tree inventory project, funded by a Canopy grant from the Maine Department of Environmental Resources and endorsed by the City of Belfast. Six months into the 18-month grant period, TWiG has cataloged 1,641 trees growing on city property along the town’s roadways, begun the development of a patch forest in…