The Kane County Forest Preserve District celebrated Earth Day a little early over the weekend by inviting volunteers to plant, mulch and water 500 new trees at Fabyan Forest Preserve in Geneva.
A press release from the Forest Preserve District said that native species being planted at the Saturday event, which took place four days before Earth Day on April 22, included white oak, bur oak, pagoda dogwood, sugar maple, hazelnut, nannyberry and blackhaw.
Rob Cleave, volunteer coordinator for the Forest Preserve District of Kane County, said staff “were very excited to welcome people to our Earth Day tree and shrub planting.”
This year’s site for the planting was located just west of the recycling center along Fabyan Parkway.
“We are actually planting a field that has been a soccer field for years. Members of the community may have grown up playing soccer for Tri-City Soccer or the Fox Valley Strikers and used this field,” Cleave said. “We have taken it out of use as a soccer field and we are excited to plant it as an oak woodland and establish it alongside what is known as our Little Woods which is one of our larger sections of woodland.”
Jason Johnson, natural resources manager for the Kane County Forest Preserve District, was on hand Saturday and noted the annual volunteer planting effort has been going on for about 25 years.
“I’ve been with the Forest Preserve since 1998, so it’s been a few,” he said at the start of the planting event. “Having 500 trees is typical with nine different species. It probably takes about 10 years before people driving by will be able to see the oaks become big enough to be seen from the road. Oaks need a lot of light and it’s important that we replant them as we have some here that are 200 years old and at the end of their life cycle. Oaks need full sunlight and the ones we have aren’t regenerating a lot because the canopy is closed in.”
Refreshments and live music were also provided Saturday as hundreds checked in at a visitors’ tent. While crowds can number as many as 500 volunteers, Cleave noted an hour into the planting that “the cold weather brought maybe 300 out today.”
Many families were on hand for the planting event including Carla Cumblad of St. Charles who brought her two grandchildren, Carter, 7, and Haley, 5.
“I’ve come out before with Carter. I wanted to bring my grandkids because it’s Earth Day and we’re celebrating the Earth which has taken care of us,” Cumblad said. “Carter, he’s a big-time gardener, and this is the first time for Haley.”
Cumblad spoke about the intrinsic rewards she gets from planting trees.
“My family were immigrants settling in northern Wisconsin and they were all lumberjacks,” she said. “They worked in the woods and they were all carpenters and know how important wood is to our survival and now, for us, it’s for our environment and for our grandchildren.”
Jennifer Nemcek, also of St. Charles, came with her son Julius, 2, to the event.
“It’s something fun and nice for kids to do and, when we plant, it kind of offsets the bad things that are happening in our world today,” she said.
Aaron and Emily Schmidt of St. Charles came with their son Hunter, 11, and daughter Hazel, 7.
“We’ve come before. It’s probably our fifth time and we come back every year,” Emily Schmidt said. “There have been some cold years and some warm years and this is one of the chillier years given it’s about 45 degrees. We keep coming back because it’s always a nice event to do with our family and it’s easy to do and we like boing able to go back and visit the spots where we’ve planted trees.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
