By T'ai Roulston, Curator & Research Associate Professor
In 2011, a group of bicycling arborists paused at the Arboretum and planted 35 trees in an hour. Each year the group, called Tour des Trees, pedals several hundred miles educating the public about tree care and the importance of trees. They happened to be passing by Blandy on their trip from Virginia Beach to Washington, DC and stopped to plant trees before their lunch break. (It was a time when biking on Route 50 was merely a bad idea, not a death wish.) That planting kicked off our Community Forest, a multi-year tree planting to expand the forest for wildlife near the front entrance. You can see an entertaining 27 second time-lapse video of the planting, complete with pagan blessing of the trees, here.
From 2011 to 2015, civic organizations and school groups planted 401 native trees, wispy twigs at first, barely poking above the autumn grass. Few planters that day likely envisioned a future forest where they stood, where they could return some years later to find shade instead of a searing sun. But that day is now --the trees have thrived, their long limbs interlocking and providing twiggy perches for birds to hang their nests. I hope some of our volunteers have returned to see their handiwork. Even the youngest among them are college-aged now and onto a life they couldn't imagine back then. We have continued planting over the years so you will see trees of all sizes, from clusters of wispy sticks in the grass to 30 foot trees where no grass grows, showing the origins of the large trees and the future of the small ones. You may find a plant tag identifying a particular tree and thanking you for your efforts that day.
Inside the 10-13 year old Community Forest. Fallen leaves cover the ground. The grass has been shaded out inside the areas of older trees.
Thanks to all of you who got the forest started in those early days, including DG Cooley Elementary, Flint Hill High School, Fresta Valley Christian School, Nysmith School for the Gifted, Front Royal/Warren County Tree Stewarts, Saplings Inc., Rappahannock High School, Master Naturalist program volunteers, and all of our faithful weekly volunteers. Next time we need volunteers for a tree planting will probably be late spring 2025 and we'll announce it through our website and social media when we do. Hope to see you here or somewhere else, starting a forest one tree at a time.
Where is the community forest? It is on both sides of the front entrance road, just as you enter the property. There is a very small patch on the right as you enter and it has an interpretive sign describing the project. There is a much larger patch on the left, about 100 yards in from the road and adjacent the older forest that borders U.S. Route 50.
