Most people think of the Department of Transportation as ‘big brother’ going wherever they want, tearing down houses and miles of fencing to make way for a new highway, or deciding which intersections are dangerous enough to completely be re-routed, often ringing the death knell for many a small town, such as their plan is for the town of Trego in 2020.
Within the past two years, the dreaded DOT bulldozed their way through the town Shell Lake, completely eliminating the Butterfly Gardens as they marched forward with a series of turn lanes and improved streets.
One building was lost to the effort, Farley’s Auto Body, on the corner of Highway 63 and County Road B. It only took days to completely flatten everything and haul away what was left of the cement block building, and when the dust settled after the swarm of men and their heavy equipment left, the only thing standing was a beautifully flowering tree that was upright and completely unharmed.
The DOT has no plans for the future of the property except to leave it vacant, and no one knows why they chose to leave the tree, but it’s kind of nice.
Spooner, an official “Tree City” for many years, having planted over 30,000 Norway Pines throughout the years, recently replaced overgrown cedar trees in the three blocks of Parkway on First Street and Highway 70 with 25 semi-dwarf apple trees. According to Spooner’s Street Superintendent and employee for 29 years, Scott Thompson, a dedicated tree advocate himself, presented his idea to the Spooner City Council to replace the pines that were growing into the electric lines above with a tree with limited growth, something like apple trees.
It was Linda Berger of the Yellow River Gardens that suggested they plant five different varieties of apples that produced fruit at different times throughout the summer and fall. “They’re all excellent varieties and hearty for this area”, she says, “and they’re excellent eating apples.”
So far the plans are to make the apples available for the public to pick and enjoy, but perhaps in several years when the trees start bearing, plans will change. But for now, they will be available for the public to pick.
Happily, the Land and Water Conservation people in Shell Lake have been holding tree sales for over thirty years and are responsible for the planting of almost a half of a million pines in the county since the program first began.
Each January the tree list comes out with the types of trees offered that year, and according to Brent Edlin, they like to shake up what they offer each year so those faithful planters will have a different variety from which to choose each time. “We sell mostly pines,” he says; “Cannan Fir, Norway and White Pine, Colorado Blue and White Spruce, and then we vary the rest of the trees we make available like this year we sold White Birch, Juneberry, High Bush Cranberry, Red Osier Dogwood and Crab Apples.”
Considering these trees are not only in peak condition, they’re also a good size, usually between one and two feet for the pines. The average order of pines has been running between nine and ten thousand pines per year, but this year eager planters picked up over eleven thousand pines from the Ag. Research Station in Spooner at only one dollar a tree. Orders varied from the minimum of twenty-five trees all the way up to several hundred pines.
The Minnesota Nature Conservancy has also joined the tree effort by planting 400 acres of jack pine and tamarack pines in what they call a ‘conifer stronghold’ in order to preserve northern forest species during this global warming trend in the world.
Trees are the plants that will carry us into the future and it’s nice to know that we’re all making the Arbor Day Foundation people smile.
Last Update: Jun 09, 2017 8:21 pm CDT
