In honor of Evansville’s Bicentennial celebration, the city of Evansville, Keep Evansville Beautiful, and several other organizations are offering the Citizen’s Challenge, a community goal of planting 2,012 trees in 2012.
Larry Caplan, a horticulture educator at the Purdue extension office, says the project is well on its way to completion. “We want everyone to get involved,” he says. “The trees can be in your front yard, back yard, wherever. They don’t have to be publicly accessible.”
The Citizen’s Challenge encourages planting native trees and sending in a photo or posting it on the challenge’s Facebook page. All submitted trees that are planted throughout 2012 in Vanderburgh County are included in the total tree count, and are entered into a drawing for a free tree at the end of the year to be planted by the River City Tree Committee. Information on native trees is posted at 2012trees.org. From there, you can find additional links to specific planting guides and figuring out what kind of tree will work best in your planned location.
How to Submit:
Submit your photo to the 2,012 Trees in 2012 Facebook page, or send in a photo of your newly planted tree to the Department of Sustainability, Energy, and Environmental Quality, 100 E. Walnut St., CK Newsome Community Center, Suite 100, Evansville, Ind. 47713. For more information, call Shawn Dickerson, arborist with the Evansville Department of Urban Forestry, at 812-436-5752, or Larry Caplan at 812-435-5287.
