Prospect Heights Tree Care event!

roux42

Yes... I am posting another tree care event!

Welcome to the Prospect Heights Street Tree Task Force! We are newly renamed and ready to begin a busy and productive season of street tree care.

Connect with Us

Check out our new Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_216070038426859. All our events and information will be periodically updated on our page. Please invite your friends to join! We also have a new email address, [email protected].

Street Tree Care Event

On June 25th the Vanderbilt Avenue Merchants Association is sponsoring a street tree care event, from 10am - 1pm. We need volunteers, as we are providing most of the manpower for the event! Please meet us at the corner of Vanderbilt and St. Marks, and bring your gloves and tools (trowels and forks for aerating soil - no pruning if you're not a citizen pruner already!) if you have them. We will have some extras.

This should be a fun day where we can really make a difference for our hard working street trees. Please email us if you know you'll be there, or if you have questions, but feel free just to show up on that day!

Tree Pit Expansions

Many of you have expressed interest in expanding the tree pits in front of your homes. This is an excellent way to improve the lives of your trees by liberating roots and allowing for more groundwater absorption. The Tree Pit Expansion Program (TPEP) in Park Slope is helping us with this project. The cost of expansion averages from $300-$350, which includes topsoil and mulching. If you're interested in an estimate for tree pit expansion, please email us your name and address (with cross streets). TPEP is on break until the fall, but we will collect names and begin to work out a schedule over the summer.

New Trees

For those of you who want new trees planted, or to replace a dead or dying tree, the best place to start is 311. You can call or go online to the city's Forestry Service Request form:

http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_permits_and_applications/forestry_service_request.html

Start there, and give them some time - planting seasons are in October and March. There is also information on the city's website about planting your own tree, which requires a permit, here:

http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/trees_greenstreets/street_tree_plant.html

Become A Citizen Pruner!

TreesNY, a wonderful tree advocacy organization, offers classes in becoming a citizen pruner. When you complete the class, you are allowed to prune and maintain street trees anywhere in the city (though not inside of parks). It's a fun and interesting course, and you can find out more here:

http://treesny.org/programs.html

If you'd like to request a citizen pruner to come and work on your street trees, email us with your address and we will find someone who can help.

As a parting note, here are some lines from Howard Nemerov's poem, Trees. Those of us who love and care for our street trees know how much they mean to everyone in the city. Let's work together to spread the word and make life better for all of us.

To be a giant and keep quiet about it,

To stay in one's own place;

To stand for the constant presence of process

And always to seem the same;

To be steady as a rock and always trembling,

Having the hard appearance of death

With the soft, fluent nature of growth,

One's Being deceptively armored,

One's Becoming deceptively vulnerable,

To be so tough, and take the light so well,

Freely providing forbidden knowledge

Of so many things about heaven and earth

For which we should otherwise have no word....

Thank you for caring about Brooklyn's trees.

Prospect Height Street Tree Task Force

[email protected]