The Howell Township Environmental Commission is pleased to announce that it will be holding a Community Tree Planting Event on October 24, 2020 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Winston Park on Redwood Road in Howell. The Commission was awarded a grant from the Nature Conservancy and Sustainable New Jersey to plant 757 trees along the Toad Creek riparian area and within Winston Park to address wet conditions and return it to a forested, natural area. The project is part of an initiative by those groups to plant 100,000 trees in New Jersey by 2020. The Howell Township Environmental Commission was awarded the grant in early 2020 and had hoped to complete the project by April, but was unable to do so due to the shutdown caused by the pandemic. The Commission has received approval to move forward and complete the project, before the planting season for trees is over for the year.
The project is in in need of more volunteers to plant the trees, and seeks assistance from residents and community or school groups. Committee Chair Joan Osborne reports that they have had good response thus far from scouting and other community volunteers, but to ensure that the project can be done in a day, more volunteers are needed. All volunteer groups will be required to follow Covid-19 social distancing safety protocols and will be working in grids to plant their 12-14 trees per grid. The project involves planting the trees and assembling tree protection tubes and stakes around each seedling. The tree protection will help ensure that the trees are not trampled or consumed by local wildlife. Further protection for the project is being provided by funding from the Howell Township Shade Tree Commission, which is providing a deer fence around the new tree planting areas, to keep deer from eating all the tree foliage.
Any volunteers interested in working on the project should contact the Environmental Commission through its chairperson, Joan Osborne, at joanosborne49@gmail.com to receive a registration form.
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