BUFFALO, N.Y. — Arbor Day, a day to celebrate trees, is this Friday. And on Wednesday, 2 On Your Side caught up with the chairman of Re-Tree WNY to talk about how the group is making sure new trees are planted and cared for in our community.
"When people get together and do this, it really does build a camaraderie of people," Paul Maurer said.
Since 2006, Paul Maurer has been on a mission to replace all of the trees lost in the October surprise storm and then some. The group's first planting was on Arbor Day in 2007, when volunteers planted 2,000 trees.
They've been going strong ever since.
"There were 57,000 trees approximately that came down during that storm, not only in Buffalo, but about 17 area communities, and we helped with all of those," Maurer said.
Now the group is concentrating on the City of Buffalo.
"Not only drought, but wind storms, snow storms, things that just are always happening in the atmosphere that are really creating havoc with trees. Not to mention this little bug, this little green bug called the Emerald Ash Borer that came in around the early 2000s," Maurer said.
Re-Tree WNY plants a variety of species to make sure a significant number of trees aren't all wiped out by a pest like that again.
When the trees are planted, they want to make sure someone in the community commits to watering them for three years. Volunteers will be out planting trees all over Buffalo this Friday and Saturday, and don't worry, if you've never done it before someone will teach you.
"With the roots, you want to make sure they're spread out well into the ground, you put a good healthy amount of soil on it, make sure there are no air pockets in there, make sure the tree is nice and straight, and then fill it in with the rest of the dirt and stake it and tie it and make sure it's watered well for the first three years of its life at least, and then you should be good," Maurer said.
And since we've gotten rain recently, the ground is good for planting trees right now. Re-Tree is also always in need of donations, and there is one big thing on the wish list.
"Our dream one day is that we can actually get, maybe a company that could help us or an individual that has a pretty good amount of funds, we need a good watering situation. We usually put these bag at the tree," Maurer said.
"What we'd love to do is be able to come along when there is a drought, or when there's a lack of rain, and fill that bag and make sure that it's watering the tree because the homeowners sometimes aren't available to do it, they're of little means, maybe they don't have a hose even, so if we can fill that void, and keep these trees watered, that would be great, so we'd love to have a watering truck or something like that."