POINT PLEASANT BEACH — The Point Pleasant Beach Shade Tree Commission is gearing up for its annual Big Beautiful Tree program and residents from Beach, Point Boro and Bay Head are all welcome to get involved.
“Our primary goal is to get more street trees planted,” said Anne Lightburn, Chair of the Shade Tree Commission. “There are many blocks that are barren of street trees and that is a need.”
The program was started in 2011 and offers residents the chance to purchase different types of native trees to plant both in their yard and in the strip of grass between the street and the sidewalks. On average, the commission sells around 10 to 12 trees per project. Once purchased, the trees will be delivered and planted for the residents by the Fernbrook Nursery.
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The trees also come with Gator bags, which are green sacks filled with water that zip up around the bottom of the tree. The bags need to be filled once a week and will distribute the right amount of water to the new trees to help get established. According to Ms. Lightburn, sprinklers and hosing does not penetrate into the soil and get down into the roots.
“We work directly with the nursery and we are able to get high quality and good size trees at a very reasonable price,” said Ms. Lightburn. “It is very successful and we do both a spring and fall offering.”
The price of the trees is dependent on the size with twelve foot shade and flowering trees being available for $400 and six- to seven-foot evergreen trees being available for $295. Residents can purchase as many trees for their yard as they want and the list of trees are available on the Point Beach Municipal website.
For more information about the Shade Tree Commission visit pointpleasantbeach.org/committee/shade-tree-commission/. The commission meets on the first Monday of each month at 7 p.m. at the municipal building and are always looking for new volunteers.
This is an excerpt of the print article. For more on this story, read The Ocean Star—on newsstands Friday or online in our e-Edition.
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