Wonder of wonders, we’ve had some trees sprout at the tree
nurseries we started last fall! Trees
Indiana started tree nurseries at five local elementary schools to supply
students with learning experiences about the urban forest.
Some schools, such as Huntertown Elementary, Eel River
Elementary and Cedar Canyon Elementary started their trees from scratch. That is to say that they planted the trees
from seeds. First, the students learned
about collecting and stratifying the seeds.
As a group we collected them and then put them in cold frames over the
winter. Seeds collected included acorns,
maple, ash, catalpa and osage orange.
Students learned about the parts of a seed and even dissected some in
the fall.
Other schools, such as Towles Montessori and Oak View
Elementary planted seedlings which included oak, tulip and redbud trees. These trees all seem to be doing well,
although a few were lost over the summer, perhaps due to irregular watering
schedules. That is always the tricky
part about planting trees at school sites.
There aren’t any students around to help in the summer, although the
rest of the school year yields wonderful assistance.
It was very exciting to see tiny trees sprouting from
seeds. The best results came from the
osage orange trees. Students did an
experiment in which seeds were removed from the pulpy (and sticky) fruit and
compared with whole fruits and pieces of fruit that were planted. The seeds that came up well were from the
whole fruit and fruit pieces. In fact,
that was almost the only type of tree that sprouted at the sites. There were two catalpa sprouts and one oak
sprout. Students will revise methods
and replant again this fall.
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