Schools

Green Team Learns About Trees, Gets Saplings to Plant

After school demonstration held after planting ceremony in village canceled because of bad weather.

Kids from the PTA’s Green Team and  Garden Club got a special treat from Judy Ogden of Ogden Nursery in St. James during an after school program on Thursday. Ogden gave out oak tree saplings for the students to take home and plant in their own yards.

She taught them a little about the tree and then led them through different stations where they wrapped the roots in paper towels and soaked them in buckets of water to keep them moist until they could be planted.

The saplings were supposed to be given to the kids on Oct. 27 during a planting ceremony when the village put four trees in the Meadow Lot and by the children's “Rocketship Park” playground but a rainstorm forced them to cancel the event. They put in a Burr Oak, American Elm, Pin Oak and Yoshino Cherry to replace trees that had been damaged, some during Hurricane Irene.

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The village received a grant from Suffolk County to purchase the plantings and to help educate the children about the indigenous trees of Long Island. The four trees had to be planted despite the fact that the ceremony was canceled because the holes had already been dug.

Instead, Ogden came to the school for the after school demonstration. She explained to the children that they received Oak tree saplings because the species is native to Long Island.

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“Most insects get help from an Oak tree,” Ogden said.

She also told the students that the trees would grow about one foot a year.

According to PTA president Jill Russell, the children will take part in another planting that will take place in the spring for Arbor Day.


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