More than 120 trees to be planted through club project

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com 

A project combining the efforts of several groups will result in 62 new trees being planted this fall and another 60 or so next spring in various areas of Charles City.

The project was started by the Charles City Rotary Club, and will involve Charles City High School students, the Charles City parks department, Otto’s Oasis and the state district forester.

Cathy Rottinghaus, the Rotary Club president, said she was attending president-elect training and one of the speakers was the president-elect of Rotary International, Ian Riseley of Sandringham, Victoria, Australia.

Riseley’s challenge for clubs around the world was for each of the 1.2 million Rotary members to plant a tree before Earth Day on April 22, 2018.

The Charles City Rotary Club fulfilled its part of that goal in the spring, when about 40 red oak trees were planted by members of the club at their homes and businesses around town.

But Rottinghaus said there are Rotary clubs in parts of the world where, because of their environment or other issues, it won’t be possible for each member to plant a tree, and so it will be necessary for some clubs to do more than one tree per member to meet that 1.2-million-tree goal.

She was talking about the project with Chris Garden, chairman of the club’s service project committee, and he told her about planting trees in his youth.

“I planted trees for my Eagle Scout project,” Garden said, and he told Rottinghaus that 30 years later he is able to look at those trees and be proud of what they have become.

Chuck Souder, another Rotarian and an avid tree-planter, noted also the looming problem of the emerald ash borer and the number of ash trees the community will lose in the next several years.

“A lot of those trees have not been taken out yet so it’s not even noticeable,” Souder said. “But it sure will be if we don’t get more trees in the ground.”

Rottinghaus said, “I came back and bounced it off these guys and the whole committee just took it and ran with it.”

Club member Dennis Donovan wrote a grant application to the Rotary Foundation, which matched $5,000 from the local club with a $5,000 grant.

Jeff Otto, of Otto’s Oasis, agreed to sell trees to the club for his cost and helped work on the design for where the trees would go with Steve Lindaman, director of the Charles City Park & Recreation Department, and with Greg Heidebrink, Charles City-based district forester with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Forestry Bureau.

Jim Lundberg, the high school ag instructor and FFA advisor, offered to supply high school student labor to plant the trees.

Heidebrink said flags will be placed Tuesday (today) where the trees will be planted so Iowa One Call can be contacted to check for buried wires or pipes.

On Tuesday morning, Oct. 17, Rotary Club members will place the trees where they are supposed to be planted. Heidebrink will instruct the students on how to plant the trees, then they will dig the holes, plant the trees and cover the bases with mulch.

“This is a pretty big project,” Heidebrink said. “Getting 60 holes dug and the trees planted — that’s the easy part. It’s the maintenance — including the watering — that’s a big job.”

Garden said Rotary Club members will be responsible for that watering.

A 5-gallon bucket with holes drilled in the bottom will be staked next to each tree. When the bucket is filled with water the water will dribble out slowly.

Souder said, “An inch (of water) a week is the standard requirement for new trees for the first couple of years. It depends on what soil types they are in. Some areas around the river it’s real sandy, real light — it drains down pretty quick. You might have to do it a couple of times a week to start with.

“That’s the beauty of a trickle bucket,” he said. “It just trickles in there.”

He said the trees will need to be watered manually for at least a couple of seasons, depending on the rainfall.

According to maps worked out between the city and Heidebrink, 17 trees will be planted at Lions Field, 12 trees at Wildwood Golf Course and 33 along the bike trail.

Garden said trees along the bike trail will go from South Grand Avenue west and then north to Wildwood Road/3rd Street.

“What’s neat is they brought in a lot of different variety of trees,” Garden said. “Especially along the trail there will be a lot of different ornamental trees. They’ll be really pretty.”

The plan is to plant 30 large trees — heritage birch, Kentucky coffeetree, triumph elm, northern red oak, white oak, yellowwood, swamp white oak, ironwood, hackberry and Princeton gold maples; and 32 ornamental trees — Minnesota strain redbud, four varieties of crabapple, three varieties of apple trees, summercrisp pear trees and north star cherry trees.

There will be an educational aspect to the project, with each of the trees identified by its species.

“We have applied for a grant from the Floyd County Community Foundation to help with some of those costs,” Garden said.

Heidebrink said he’s pleased with the selection of trees.

“That’s getting harder and harder to do with the various diseases,” he said. “I was pretty pleased with the variety.”

Rottinghaus said with all the groups involved “it just makes a nice full circle.”

“It involves a lot of the students and it gives Rotary a chance to work with students. We all learn from that.”