In year’s past, Decatur residents had to get through the entire winter without a festival.
But not anymore! From a note, I received a few days back…
…we wanted to let you know about the 1st Annual Nalley Tree Festival being held at Decatur Square on Saturday, Feb. 12, from 12 – 3 p.m.
The event is being hosted by Nalley BMW, Nalley Infiniti and Nalley Nissan, as the kick-off to its environmental, year-round Nalley Tree Campaign initiative to plant 10,000 trees in the City of Decatur and DeKalb County. It is a local business/community initiative being led by these three Nalley dealerships at the 1600 block of Church Street in partnership with several green businesses and organizations, including City of Decatur, DeKalb County, Park Pride, Trees Atlanta and Keep DeKalb Beautiful.
The Nalley Tree Festival, welcoming Decatur families and residents, promises to offer attendees music, children’s activities, as well the opportunity to learn more about planting complimentary tree seedlings in recognition of Georgia’s Arbor Day on Feb. 18.
Decatur resident Neil Norton tells us that the seedlings available this weekend are Redbuds and White Oaks; 2 years old about 2-3 feet high. Norton was also good enough to fill us in on how this newest Decatur festival came to be…
Commissioner Boykin was contacted by representative of the Nalley Car Dealership’s parent company, the Asbury Group (a fortune 500 company) to explore the possibility of planting 10,000 trees in DeKalb County. Comm. Boykin put them in touch with me to help the process. I was sold the minute I heard that they wanted to turn one of the empty spaces along Church St. into a Tree Show Room . The process involved getting Asbury in touch with the City of Decatur, DeKalb County, Trees Atlanta, Keep DeKalb Beautiful, and Park Pride to help find locations to plant trees and to help them to guide the process of the right tree, in the right place.
The Nalley Car Dealership would give free trees out to anyone that shows up at their dealership through tree planting season and they would have a tree festival on the square and give out trees to all guests in celebration of Georgia’s Arborday on February 12th. Nalley is committed to helping plant 10,000 trees in DeKalb County, including the City of Decatur and will offer the trees at least until their goal of 10K trees is reached. Their tag line is, “together we can plant 10,000 trees”. For me, it has been an amazing effort of getting the public sector, private sectors, and environmental non-profits to work in unison towards a common goal of planting trees and getting people out touching the earth in a positive fashion.
Nursery pic courtesy of Neil Norton
Way cool. Perhaps some green-thumbed DM readers can share planting and care tips for those of us who are botanically impaired?
Change the soil every 3,000 miles.
The most common tree planting mistake is to plant it too deep. Plant so the root collar (the area where the trunk starts to flare into the roots) is exposed and planted slightly above the level of the ground. If on an angle, split the difference (it will make sense if you are planting on a hill). If the tree is in a pot be sure to break up the roots, do not be shy about it, especially if the roots have circled around inside the pot. If not broken up it will girdle the roots and kill the tree down the line.
Loosen soil for 10 feet around the seedling. You don’t have to dig a huge hole but you do want our heavy clay soil disturbed enough for the baby roots to spread out.
Think about how tall and wide the tree will be in a few years. Don’t plant under power lines, too close to the house, etc.
Don’t plant too deep and smother the feeder roots.
Water! An inch a week per foot of tree if the Good Lord doesn’t provide. And mulch from near the stem of the seedling out to a couple of feet around. Don’t pile up mulch on the stem of the seedling-that encourages bugs and rot.
I don’t stake little seedlings because the wind moving them around a bit makes the root system stronger.
Other gardeners, please add what I have forgotten.
Other info on these trees:
– white oak: http://www.treehelp.com/trees/oak/species-oak-types-white.asp
Lifespan = hundreds of years
– redbud: http://www.treehelp.com/trees/redbud/index.asp
Apparently, flowers and young seed pods are edible, unless Brandeis is trying to poison us all: http://www.bio.brandeis.edu/fieldbio/Edible_plants/EasternRedbud/EasternRedbud.html
Lifespan approx 40 years
Trees, shmees. Will there be beer?
Classic FM, I told them the key to a successful event in Decatur was BEER! I do not think they will be selling beer at this year’s festival but maybe hot cider or you could partake in one of the many beer establishments on the square that serve beer.
“root” beer
I believe root beer was originally made from the Sasafras Tree, my second favoirte tree!
Golazo
You are funny! or should I say “punny!”
I cringe every time I see an event labeled as the “First Annual” . It can’t be an annual event until it’s held for a second year. Should be “Inaugural”.
Nice! I never thought about it but that makes total sense. Us loosey goosey language guys must drive you crazy. I notice many bloggers are very written language proficient. I wonder if it is a right brain/left brain thing. I am proficient at many things, but exact use of language is not one of my strengths. Yet I still blog, although usually when composing source material I have an editor review. I did learn to speak a second language, so I do have capacity. Of course, I did not personally label this event the “first annual”, but I have been guilty of labeling other events as such. Never again!
so they are giving seedlings away?
Can you get a seedling at the festival location on the square or do you have to go to the dealership?
I drove to the Church Street Nalleys and was told that the seedlings will be available at the showrooms beginning tomorrow at 12:00. The staff was very friendly.
By the way, does anyone remember the Nalley commercial in the 1970s where the announcer said, “That be Nalleys”?
This is the first time I’ve noticed a reply button. I never thought about replying but it’s a nice feature. I might use it in the future.
Anyway, I went to the Nalley showroom on Church and picked up some seedlings. Again the staff was very friendly.