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On a sunny Monday afternoon in Juneau’s Evergreen Cemetery, more than 40 children and adults gathered to celebrate Arbor Day in Alaska, a holiday dedicated to conserving forests and planting trees.
Linda Torgerson, a volunteer with the Juneau Urban Forestry Partnership, led the group in a song dedicated to city trees to the tune of the classic camp song We Love the Mountains.
“We love our urban trees, lofty cottonwoods, mountain ash and beech trees, hemlock and Sitka spruce, we love the birds they bring, our arbors make us sing on Arbor Day, Arbor Day, Arbor Day oh Arbor Day,” the choir sang.
Trees provide clean air, wildlife habitat, and food. Their roots hold soil in place. They offer shade from the sun, cover from the rain, and wood for building and burning. Most other U.S. states honor their trees in late April, but Alaska’s Arbor Day falls on the third Monday in May to align with the planting season here.
Ben Patterson, the city’s landscape supervisor, said that the cemetery became a certified arboretum last October. It is accredited as a level one arboretum since 41 species of trees and woody plants currently grow here. He’s working on getting to a hundred species which will give the arboretum level two status.
“We’re adding this little mountain hemlock, which is one native to Southeast Alaska, and the other Southeast native that we’re planting this year are yellow cedar,” Patterson said.
He said the city adds a couple of species every year. The yellow cedars were a gift from a member of the community.
“At the time, they were only about 10 inches high,” he said. “Now, the ones we’re going to plant, they’re probably three feet high.”
Students from Harborview Elementary School took turns shoveling dirt to make holes for the saplings. It was quick work with so many hands joining in. Adults joked that the kids might dig more holes than there are trees to plant in them.
Patterson dropped some soil back into the holes before plopping the yellow cedars in and patting the dirt into place around the roots.
