NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 20, 1999

CARY CELEBRATES ARBOR DAY WITH
TOWN SPRING DAZE FESTIVAL AS
BACKDROP

CARY, NC – The Town of Cary’s annual Arbor Day Celebration will be held this Saturday in conjunction with Cary’s Spring Daze Arts & Crafts Festival. Both events will be held on Cary’s Town Hall campus, located at the 300 block of North Academy Street. An Arbor Day ceremony will be held at 11:30 AM on the festival main stage near the Page-Walker Center, and instead of commemorating Arbor Day by planting a tree, this year’s event will include educational tree walks and demonstrations on a range of tree topics throughout the day.

"Everybody loves spring, and the Spring Daze Festival is the community’s closest thing to a celebration of spring," said Town Horticulturist Shaub Dunkley. "But what would our spring be like without trees? A spring festival is a perfect time for the community to also celebrate the importance of trees to our quality of life."

Arbor Day started in Nebraska as a day set aside to celebrate and plant trees. While spring is a good time to plant trees in Nebraska since it has such harsh winters, fall and winter are actually much better times to plant trees in North Carolina. Springtime, however, remains a wonderful and traditional time to enjoy and celebrate trees.

At Cary’s Saturday celebration, certified arborists from the local branches of the Bartlett Tree Company and the Davey Tree Topics will lead tree walks which include tree identification, tree use in home landscaping, large tree pruning needs and demonstrations of young tree corrective pruning. A hands-on tree activity is also planned for kids 5-12 years old.

Town staff will conduct an open question and answer walk. Since many Cary homeowners have lost pine trees to the southern pine beetle, a NC Division of Forest Resources forester will be present to talk to homeowners about this destructive pest. A full activity schedule is available through the FAQ and What’s New links on the Town of Cary’s Internet site at <www.townofcary.org>. Handout schedules will also be available on the day of the festival.

During the 11:30 AM Arbor Day ceremony, the State of North Carolina will present the Town with its sixteenth consecutive Tree City USA award. This award is given to communities who meet municipal tree program standards set by the National Arbor Day Foundation. Standards require the municipality to have a landscape or municipal ordinance and to also have comprehensive community tree program that has a minimum funding level of $2 per capita. In 1998, Cary spent an estimated $5.44 per capita.

The ceremony will include a report on the Trees For Cary program, which pools public donations for tree planting. The report will include announcement of the individuals and organizations whose names have been added to a program plaque located in the Town Hall. Staff will also give an overview of town tree-related highlights since last Arbor Day.

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