Today is Love a Tree Day!

Always on May 16th

It's Love a Tree Day. So, go out and give a tree a great big hug.

Trees are a good thing. They give us shade, comfort and warmth. They give off oxygen, too. There are many, many benefits provided by trees. So, you have good reason to love a tree or two.

Everyone has a favorite kind of tree. Use today to identify a tree you love, and to pamper it. Give it a trim. Eliminate competitors around it. Feed it a dose of fertilizer. Tree spikes work great. And, give the tree some water, if it is thirsty

Trees are natures air conditioners. In one year the average tree inhales 26 pounds of carbon dioxide, the amount emitted by a car on an 11,000 mile trip. This same tree will in turn exhale enough oxygen to keep a family of 4 breathing for a year. Your trees treat the carbon dioxide they take in. The foliage uses the carbon in the gas to make sugars and starches. The leftover oxygen is released back into the air. We could not sit here today and breathe the clean air we are breathing without our trees. Trees are the greatest collectors of the suns energy. All energy comes from the sun and our trees collect and store more of it than anything else in the world. The benefits of trees can be divided into two general areas. Direct benefits, such as cool from shade or increased property value and indirect benefits. Indirect benefits impact you, the tree owner and the community in real, but less tangible ways. In fact, indirect benefits from trees are more numerous than direct benefits. These benefits include filtration and absorption of air pollutants, reduced storm water run off, storing of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and beneficial impact on the general quality of life. Perhaps the greatest contribution our trees make is an emotional one. People who live in cities brighten up at the site of a tree, the scrawniest saplings challenging the concrete. Silently in our minds they rise as symbols of stability, dignity, adventure, comfort and knowledge.