All things trees will be in the spotlight, or at the very least in the sunlight on Sunday, June 7th.
Arbor Day will be held in Morden Park from 1:00 – 5:00 PM, with fun activities for all ages, and no cost to attend.
Mordan’s Urban Forest Manager
Jeff Guenter is the Urban Forestry Manager for The City of Morden.
He stopped by The Eagle 93.5 to speak with morning show host Jayme Giesbrecht about the celebration, and there may have been an unintended tree pun early on in that conversation.
Giesbrecht commented how smiling and chipper Guenter appeared to be, so early in the morning, Woodchipper? Maybe just a chance choice of description?
Well, let’s leaf that for now, and get into the conversation. Fair warning – there may be an intentional tree pun in Guenter’s former company’s name…
“I worked in the private tree sector for One Two Tree Service, our local tree company, they’re out of Morden.” Gunter shared. “I worked for them for a little over 14 years. Lots of removals and lots of tree trimming.
“So that’s kind-of where I came from. I’ve been doing that for a long time.”
We’re gonna need a bigger axe…
The biggest tree Guenter ever had to remove was substantial.
“We’ve removed probably 100-foot cottonwood trees.” he recalled.
Arbor Day 2024
Urban Forestry in Morden covers a lot of tasks and territory.
“Right now we’re in our tree planting time.” Gunter explained. “We actually plant a ton of trees. We try to plant usually a few 100 trees every year.
“We have a list of approved tree species that we like to plant on our boulevards. We like the trees to grow big. We want to encourage our tree canopy to grow.”
Bigger is better
Even elsewhere, bigger is better for trees.
“So, little fruit trees, as nice as they are and as nice as they smell for a short time, they don’t increase the tree canopy the way we would like it to.” Guenter shared. “We like to encourage residents, if they want to do that, to plant them in their own yard.
“Then we want them to plant something that’ll grow bigger.”
Morden offers a wide variety of trees, and Guenter’s been involved in growing that inventory.
“Some of the common ones, we have Oak trees, Ash and Elm.” Guenter itemized. “We’ve planted quite a few Hackberry trees, lots of Linden trees.”
Who knew – there’s a differerence
You may have looked at hundreds of trees in your lifetime, but you may not have been aware that there are male and female trees.
“There are male and female, because you’ll notice, actually in my backyard, I have some Manitoba Maple trees.” Guenter noted. “Some of them seed, and some of them don’t.
The male ones seed. When you have allergies in the springtime, it’s the male trees that are causing those allergies.
“It’s definitely pollen season right now.” Guenter confirmed.
Arbor Day 2024
Arbor Day is fast approaching.
“It is coming up on Sunday.” Guenter advised. “It’s a day to remind us to just be outside in nature, celebrate trees, and then just a little bit on the importance of protecting the environment.
“We want to have a day that promotes that, celebrates that, and just have some fun doing it.”
Trees and dogs – a match made in heaven
Part of the celebration includes free hot dogs.
“Some of the councillors from Morden will be there cooking them up for you, handing them out.” Guenter shared.
“We start at 1:00 PM and run until 5:00 PM. We have more nurseries that’ll come and do a shrub pruning demo. There is face painting. We’ll have a whole art table for the kids. We will have a tree planting. I will plant a tree, so if someone wants to actually learn how to plant them the way we plant them, I would encourage you to follow me to where we’re going to plant.”
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Important to know where to plant
There is a specific way to plant a tree to make sure that it situates properly.
“There is.” Guenter explained. Their survival rate will be a lot better.”
For this event, Guenter is branching out.
“Fun fact, I’m actually hoping our tree planting this year will be with a tree that has never been planted before in the Pembina Valley.”
Arbor Day 2024
Going up
One Two Tree will provide an elevated arborist opportunity.
“If you want to hop in a bucket and see how high those guys can go when they’re cutting the trees down, come on down, they’ll be giving free rides.” Guenter said.
“Shane Freeman, he’s a gentleman from Brandon. He’s actually going to come and show us how to properly climb trees with ropes and everything else. I’m actually looking forward to that because personally I’ve never actually seen it done that way.”
Repurposing lumber
For tree usage beyond planting, a portable sawmill will be on site.
“We have some guys from Tinker Creek that are going to bring their personal sawmill to the park, and we’re going to provide them with some big logs.” Guenter shared. “They’re going to mill them into boards for us.
“You can see that process, repurposing lumber.”
Arbor Day takes place in Morden Park.
“On the west side, where it’s nice and shady.” Guenter advised.” I think it’s important to realize how important trees are.
“I think Arbor Day was set up as a day to plant trees specifically. I think it’s a good way to encourage people to help beautify their properties, beautify the community, and spend some time outside together.”
Special activity for kids
There will be a kid-specific element to the day.
“Well, we have an art contest with the school.” Guenter explained. “We’re going to display all the artwork that the kids have sent to us, nd we’re going to end up picking some winners. I don’t know when, but we’ve actually picked the winners already.
“We have an age group of kindergarten to Grade 2, so the artwork is very different. It’s very fun to see what the kids come up with, actually.
Arbor Day 2024
The winners will be announced shortly.
“I think we’re going to go to the schools first thing next week.” Guenter suggested. We have some prizes that are going to be provided by Giant Tiger, who’s also providing the hot dog lunch. Then the winner of the art contest will get the opportunity to have myself come to their school and plant a tree for them there.”
First-timer
This will be Guenter’s first Arbor Day in his role as Urban Forestry Manager.
“It’s busy, but it’s fun.” he commented. “I go out with our seasonal staff and help them as well. Between going to residents’ houses when they have questions and helping plant. Then we have our elm injection season that comes in the middle of July.
“When I have time, I get into my own removals, pruning and those kinds of projects that I need to do as well.”
Arbor Day takes place Sunday, June 7th at Morden Park, from 1-5 PM.
For all the activities and details, visit Morden.ca, and click on Events or the Arbor Day links on the homepage.
with files from Jayme Giesbrecht