The Hampton Tree Board is nearly finished with its spring Tree Line Street Program which is part of an effort to help restore the tree canopy in Hampton and Franklin County.
Hampton Tree Board member, Randy Sanders, tells Radio on the Go News why residents of Franklin County benefit from the program.
*Sanders #1
“It’s an incentive to get people to plant trees and to get this canopy started back. A lot of people can’t do the planting themselves. They don’t know the varieties. And that’s what the tree board is all about, is helping them with the right tree for the right location. So many people say, ‘this is what I want.’ What we’d like to hear from the tree board is, what would be the best tree for this location in a soil condition to plant? And plant what works, don’t plant what you want always. It’s not always the best way, but a nice proven variety of trees that works real well and pretty much a disease-free bunch of trees.”
As part of the program, the Hampton Tree Board bought over 50 trees to plant in areas affected by the Emerald Ash Borer and severe thunderstorms. The trees are valued anywhere from $100 to $200 and tree board members plant them at a cost of $50 per tree. Sanders says they have helped restore the tree canopy in several areas of Franklin County.
*Sanders #2
“We had quite a few farmsteads that lost ash trees. Storms come through, damaged some other trees. They were interested in planting. A lot of farmsteads ended up buying shade trees to plant out there on their farmstead. We had one other spot on the bike trail west of Seabees down toward the Squaw Creek Bridge on the bike trail where the county conservation guys took a whole bunch of mulberry and ash out this last winter. About 35 new trees were put in there. It was amazing how many ash trees and mulberries were in there, but now we have a nice forest that’s been planted in there. So yeah, it’s worked really well. Everybody needs trees that’s very clear to see when you see the available sunlight we have right now after all these ash trees are coming down.”
Sanders says the tree board has already planted over 130 trees in 2024.
