TAYLOR PARKS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL celebrates Arbor Day with new trees

As is custom each year, the City of Taylor celebrated Arbor Day by planting trees at a local school. This year, Buildings and Grounds Foreman Guido Ulin, his crew and Mayor Rick Sollars visited Taylor Parks Elementary School.

In fact, Mayor Sollars is a Taylor Parks graduate.

Pupils and staff from the school joined hands in planting two brand new Sunset Maple trees behind the building. Taylor Parks abuts to Jaycee Park in a very beautiful setting that includes a walking trail.

“This is a great way to add new trees in our community and, as the same time, join hands with Taylor Schools,” Mayor Sollars said. “The kids were great today – they paid attention, obviously had researched the subject and promised to take good care of those new trees. It made me proud to be a Taylor Parks graduate.”

Taylor is an official “Tree City U.S.A.”, a designation that comes with obligations to plant new trees each season. As has been past practice, the City administration and staff coordinate the new plantings with schools each spring. In the recent past, the City has planted trees at Hoover, Holland and Randall.

The participating Taylor Parks students were very well-versed in plantings, and Ulin took time to not only discuss the nationwide program and Taylor’s participation, but what their own expectations should be – how tall the trees will be in 20 years, why they had to perform certain functions during the planting process, and how important watering was going to be in the near future. The trees were provided by D & L Garden Center on Ecorse Road.

Once holes were properly dug and the trees were placed, the pupils took over the work, filling the holes back up, adding fertilizer and packing down the dirt around the plants. Once mulch was dumped, the children spread that out, too, leaving a “cup” around the tree for watering purposes.