It’s time to get ready for spring. Now through the end of February you can order trees through the Springfield Parks Foundation. Purchase a tree for yourself or donate one for the Springfield Park District to plant. All proceeds from the tree sales will be used by the Springfield Parks Foundation to help fund local pollinator garden projects.
A wide selection of native trees is available at a cost of $150 per tree – river birch, sugarberry, white fringetree, persimmon, swamp white oak, bur oak, swamp chestnut oak, American elm, native red maple, Franksred maple, Sun Valley maple and redbud. Order online at https://bit.ly/springtreesale.
Trees are typically six to seven feet tall and 1 ½ to 2 inches in diameter. They will be available to pick up in mid-April.
The Springfield Park District, founded in February 1900, was the second park district established in Illinois. The Springfield Parks Foundation is a nonprofit organization created in 1991 to raise money to help preserve and care for Springfield’s parks, which now number nearly 40 throughout the city, covering 2,500 acres. Every year trees need to be replaced in order to maintain a healthy and diverse tree population.
This article appears in Thousand-Year Statehouse.
