National Zoo: Citizen Forester Workshop Recap

This past weekend (October 6th to be exact), we hosted our first Citizen Forester Qualifying class of the fall planting season – at the National Zoo! Following up on last year’s very successful planting at the Zoo’s American Trail, this year we brought out 78 volunteers to not only help plant 31 trees, but to participate in a variety of classes and workshops. Our newest (and some refreshing) Citizen Foresters all learned how to select and prepare a tree planting site, as well as proper planting techniques. We also covered practices critical to maintaining tree health (like proper mulching, watering and pruning).

Once we finished our morning of learning, we went and practiced our new-found skills in front of the Great Apes and Great Cats exhibits. Our plantings included a variety of heritage oaks, black gums, yellow woods, amongst others. This event also marked the start of a new specialization within the Citizen Forester program: Citizen Planter (in order to be considered one, you must also volunteer at two or more Community Tree Planting events each season after completing your Citizen Forester credits). Citizen Planters play an important role at Casey Trees by leading groups of volunteers at Community Tree Planting groups and educating them on best tree planting and care practices.

We wrapped up the day with some cool water for all the hard labor our newly minted Citizen Foresters did, and a reminder about our monthly Citizen Forester happy hours – because we don’t want to only see you when there’s work to be done!

We had a variety of important people join us for this event: a special thanks goes out to our Project Organizer Teresa Vetick, as well as a multitude of new and old donors – thank you for your contributions to help make our plantings possible!

Check out more photos from the Zoo planting, as well as many of our other plantings this season on our Flickr page.

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