THE LEAFLET

September 5, 2017 /
Jona Elwell

Busy Bees: Summer at Casey Trees

Before we dive into another planting season (yay fall!), we thought it would be fun to look back and see what kept us busy when we couldn’t plant this summer. Surprising no one – we were kept busy restoring, enhancing, and protecting current and future trees throughout the District.

So just what exactly were we up to? Glad you asked!

This summer, we brought on 30 new tree advocates! 17 tree advocates submitted public comments and 20 met with a District official to talk about prioritizing our city’s trees.

You may be familiar with TreeWise, our summer education program, but did you know we engage youth in other ways? We had 370 (!) students attend one of our TreeWise camps, interacted with 56 members from the Student Conservation Association, and taught 32 GZEP participants. That’s 458 youth total! #theFutureisBright

Although we can’t plant trees, we sure can care for them! Our pruning corps visited 7 different sites this summer checking in on trees – including three events where we pruned Cherry trees. If any trees in D.C. need help, it’s those treasured ones (especially after their rough spring). All in all, that means we pruned 250 trees and engaged 447 volunteers – 371 adults and 76 kids. Aw yeaa.

Caring for trees also means taking stock of the types of trees we’re dealing with. Thanks to our volunteers (who came from all over!) we were able to inventory 3,849 trees at 16 separate events. The average trunk diameter from the trees this summer was 12.5 inches – but we saw trees ranging from as small as 0.7 inches to as large as 70.2 inches! Overall we saw 150 different species of trees, with Cherry, Willow Oak, and American Elm taking the top three spots.

And as you may  have heard, this was a particularly special summer – the International Society of Arboriculture’s Conference and Trade Show was held here! We were treated to informative sessions, a tree climbing championship, and a special tree tour of D.C.!

Were you one of the awesome advocates, pruners, or inventoriers this summer? Want to get involved and help our canopy be its best? Sign up for any one of our volunteer events here or become a team leader so you can lead plantings! Bummed the date you wanted is full? We’ll let you in on a tip – Casey Trees members get priority registration for select volunteer events.