2017 Arbor Day Seedling Giveaway– see where each seedling went!

Arbor Day is rich in his­to­ry and dates back to the 1800s. A Nebras­ka jour­nal­ist and politi­cian, Julius Ster­ling Mor­ton, was an advo­cate for trees and real­ized the ben­e­fits that wide-scale tree plant­i­ng had to the econ­o­my. Once Mor­ton became a mem­ber of Nebraska’s state board of agri­cul­ture, he pro­posed a day to be set aside to encour­age tree plant­i­ng and increase tree aware­ness. This act cre­at­ed the first Amer­i­can Arbor Day. On April 10, 1972 Nebras­ka plant­ed more than ONE MILLION trees—leading to a suc­cess­ful first Amer­i­can Arbor Day.

Nowa­days, Arbor Day is observed and cel­e­brat­ed all over the world, con­tin­u­ing to encour­age tree plant­i­ng and tree aware­ness. Dif­fer­ent states cel­e­brate Arbor Day at dif­fer­ent times through­out the year depend­ing on the oppor­tune time to plant trees in their cli­mate. Penn­syl­va­nia cel­e­brates Arbor Day on the last Fri­day in April.

To cel­e­brate Morton’s vision and Arbor Day, on April 28th Tree Pitts­burgh in part­ner­ship with the Pitts­burgh Shade Tree Com­mis­sion host­ed a tree seedling give­away in Mar­ket Square where over 700 tree seedlings were dis­trib­uted to par­tic­i­pants from Alleghe­ny Coun­ty and neigh­bor­ing states like Ohio, New York, Mary­land, and New Jersey!

Species of seedlings at the give­away includ­ed: yel­low birch, sweet­gum, sweet­bay mag­no­lia, black­gum, red­bud, Chi­nese quince, paw­paw, arborvi­tae, and white oak. Once these seedlings are plant­ed, they will con­tribute to tree diver­si­ty in urban forests, remove air tox­ins, pro­vide homes and food for wildlife, decrease tem­per­a­tures caused from the urban heat island effect, pro­vide shade, reduce water runoff, and so much more! You can learn more about the ben­e­fits of trees in the resources sec­tion of our website.

Thank you to all who par­tic­i­pat­ed! If you received a tree, post a pic­ture of its growth on the Arbor Day Seedling Give­away event page and be sure to fol­low Tree Pitts­burgh on Face­book or check out our events cal­en­dar for infor­ma­tion on future tree giveaways.