Beach plum
MARGATE - Sustainable Margate is partnering with the Margate school gardem to give away free, potted, native beach plum and bayberry shrubs to residents. The beach plums are a foot tall and the bayberry shrubs are 1-1.5 feet tall.
The small plants the students call shrublets were planted, raised and placed in 1-gallon containers. The saplings will be distributed first come, first serve 1-3 p.m. on Arbor Day, Friday, April 28 in the parking lot of the Bloom Pavilion, behind the Margate Public Library.
Arbor Day is recognized as a day of planting, upkeep and the preservation of trees. It has its roots back in the 1870s when Nebraska newspaper editor Julius Sterling Morton wanted to address the lack of trees and encouraged the planting of trees in his community. Morton lobbied the Nebraska State Agricultural Board to set aside a day of planting trees and on April 10, 1872 the first Arbor Day event took place, with more than 1 million trees planted in one day. Popularity of the event soon spread to other states and even to other countries. It wasn't until 1970 that President Nixon declared Arbor Day a national holiday.
Appreciation of trees is being realized more than ever. Raging forest fires, drought and blight are taking its toll on the nation's forests. Arbor Day sets aside a day of reflection on the value that trees contribute to the well being of citizens.
On April 15, 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt, a supporter of the Conservation Movement, issued an "Arbor Day Proclamation to the School Children of the United States, telling them: It is well that you should celebrate your Arbor Day thoughtfully, for within your lifetimes the Nation's need of trees will become serious. We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship; but in your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed.
Northern bayberry
