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Crossville’s Tree Board is working with the city to host the annual tree giveaway on Saturday to celebrate Arbor Day.
Tree Board Chair Janet Dowlen said they will be giving away different kinds of seedlings, as well as selling potted trees for easier care. Dowlen said she hopes the event will help people to better appreciate trees and their importance in the city.
“That’s one of the best ways we can do it, is try to do it once a year,” Dowlen said. “‘Cause people know it’s a habit and they can expect a free tree. But we want to have it not just be a free tree, we want to have it be a little bit of an educational aspect.”
Dowlen said the trees are given away on a first come, first served basis and are almost entirely gone within thirty minutes. She said the goal of the event is to create a “green effect” throughout the city with newly planted trees.
“That’s the main goal, but then to have the trees survive is one of our hopes,” Dowlen said. “We’re, like I said, offering quite a few different varieties, but then also providing them bare root as well as potted for ease of management.”
Dowlen said they make a point to offer species of trees that have unique or sentimental value.
“We’ve had a lot of wildlife habitat people who like to do things like that, and so we have a – we usually have hazelnuts or things that would draw in wildlife to your yard,” Dowlen said.
Dowlen said the event has taken place each year in the city ever since it joined the Tree City USA program twenty four years ago, but last year was the first year they sold potted trees alongside the seedling giveaway.
“A lot of people can’t take care of some of the seedling items,” Dowlen said. “They, you know, they may sit around and dry out, and then they die. So some people will – it’s more, I guess, agreeable to their schedules that they would have a potted tree versus a buried seedling.”
Dowlen said the event takes place at 9:00 am in the Cumberland County Community Complex’s livestock pavilion. Dowlen said the money raised from the event will go back into the tree board’s funds.
“That is also, you know, goes back into the system where we also do outreach for the public,” Dowlen said.
