National Arbor Day - April 29 2022
This year Arbor Day falls on Friday April 29th, as it always occurs in the US on the last Friday of April. Globally however its dates vary depending on the regional planting season.
This year it is the 150th anniversary of the tree planter’s holiday, and we are ready to celebrate!
What Is Arbor Day:
Arbor Day, much like Earth Day, is a holiday that celebrates nature.
Its purpose is to encourage people to plant trees, and many communities take the opportunity to organize tree-planting and litter-collecting events on or around the holiday. A popular Arbor Day tradition is to plant a tree in honor or memory of a loved one.
The first recorded arbor plantation festivity happened in the Spanish village of Mondonedo in 1594 and Spanish the village of Villanueva held the first modern Arbor Day in 1805 organized by a local priest.
In the United Stated, Arbor Day sprouted from the mind of Julius Sterling Morton, who had a passion for planting all kinds of trees and organized the first Arbor Day on April 10, 1872, in Nebraska City, Nebraska.
It is estimated that almost a million trees were planted on that day.
By 1885 Arbor Day had become a legal holiday in Nebraska and its date had been changed to April 22 to honor Morton’s birthday.
Within twenty years of its creation the holiday spread to every state in the United States.
Julius Sterling Morton:
Born in Adams, New York, in 1832, but left new york to marry on October 1854. Him and Caroline Joy French were married in Detroit, but decided to head west and finally decided to settle in the wilds of Nebraska Territory.
The couple moved on a 160 treeless acres .
Despite having a busy career and four sons, Morton planted thousands of trees on the homestead he called the Morton “ranche.”
He planted an apple orchard, peach, plum, and pear trees, cottonwoods, evergreens, beeches, and more.
Morton worked as a journalist and a politician, becoming secretary and acting governor of the Nebraska Territory from 1858 to 1861.
He gave speeches and filled his newspaper with agricultural advice, urging Nebraskans to plant trees and try new crops.
In 1872, Morton declared: “If I had the power, I would compel every man in the State who had a home of his own to plant out and cultivate fruit trees.”
In 1893, President Grover Cleveland appointed him U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. He also served on the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture and the State Horticultural Society.
Today, the family home, Arbor Lodge, is a state park in Nebraska City, Nebraska. Over the years, Arbor Lodge grew from a four-room home into a 52-room mansion, complete with a terraced garden, a pine grove, and 65 acres of more than 250 varieties of trees and shrubs. J. Sterling Morton died at the age of 70 on April 27, 1902, writing just a month earlier that he hoped to plant trees as soon as the weather turned warm. A statue of him stands in the National Hall of Fame in Washington, D.C.
If you do not have a yard and planting a tree is out of the question, perhaps re-plant an indoor houseplant, germinate a seed you harvested from a fruit… just keep the spirit of the holiday alive and have some safe at projects with the family!
Photo By : Andrea Sánchez
For parents struggling to find ways to encourage their kids to eat a healthy and balanced diet, gardening can be an important tool. Arbor Day could lend itself to be the perfect fun and health promoting family day.
Don’t be scared, you don’t need to be a master gardener and you don’t need to have the perfect yard also. A small raised bed can be more than enough to be the beginning of something great. . you can even just grow a little cherry tomato plant out of a 10 gallon bucket…a large pot with a trellis for a bean vine or just plant a couple of herbs in a small planter in a sunny spot. The biggest plus is how planting a garden can affect not only your child’s body but also their brain and soul.
In this social media age, kids need time for meaningful connection and active family time.
The time spent in the outdoors is a great family building time, it fosters great communication. The time taken to plan your garden to sprout the seeds and whiting them grow gives kids a sense of responsibility and purpose.
Making sure that whatever you planted receives enough food, water and sun teaches them mindfulness.
What they learn gardening, like composting food scraps for fertilizer or using gathered rainwater, can teach kids to develop a deep sense of respect for our planet and teaches them sustainability ….and what could be more important than that?!
Studies show that when children have contact with soil during activities like digging and planting, they have improved moods, better learning experiences and decreased anxiety. It is a way for them to reconnect with the earth not to mention the sense of pride a child feels when he gets to eat a bright sweet tomato he grew from scratch!
