Submitted by Ruth Robinson and Jaci Edwards
for the Arbor Resource Committee (BARC)
What a town!
At 9 a.m. on a rainy Saturday and more than a dozen—mostly smiling– people were standing in front of Town Hall ready to do their part to make Bedford safer, healthier and more beautiful. They were there for the inaugural day of the Bedford Citizen Inventory of Public Trees, which kicked off with field training to identify tree species.
The originally-scheduled field training session—not necessary for participating in the inventory– had been rained out, and Julie Coop, Mass. DCR, volunteered to return last Saturday, only to be met by another rainy day—and to find a core group of our good-natured Bedford folks showed up, ready to get wet.
The DPW and Arbor Resource Committee (BARC) hope to check all of our public street trees for structural health, disease and insect infestation over the next few years. If we can identify species (maple, oak, etc), all the better, but volunteers don’t need any specialized knowledge or training to participate in the inventory.
Volunteers Still Welcome
Volunteers just need to get a map and instructions from Ruth Robinson ([email protected]) and to spend some time—at their convenience—outside with family or friends, a pencil, tape measure, the map and charts.
Talk about Tree Huggers—literally!
Just wondering, how does this effort compare to the one several years ago inventorying the oldest trees in town?