Arbor Day

Occurs the Last Friday of April effective 4/25/2008 throughout the day.

Celebrate Arbor Day on April 25, 2008!

What is Arbor Day?

Arbor Day is a nationally-celebrated observance that encourages tree planting and care.

Founded by J. Sterling Morton in Nebraska in 1872, National Arbor Day is celebrated each year on the last Friday in April.

Good Ideas for a Great Arbor Day Celebration:

  • Raise the flag, strike up the band, make Arbor Day fun. Make it memorable. Organize a fun run. Make it a real event. See if a local business will donate prizes. Have a poster contest, or a poetry contest. Get the local PTA to sponsor a children's pageant or play. Check out the Arbor Day Play, where the statue of J. Sterling Morton comes to life to tell the children how he "authored" this special holiday. Organize and train volunteers to help you carry outArbor Day ceremonies in your schools.

  • Get people excited. Show them things they've never seen before. Tell them things about trees they've never heard.

  • Fill the air with music. Have an Arbor Day concert of songs about trees, or with tree names in their titles.

  • Get people into action. Ask a civic or service group to promote a paper drive to gather paper to be recycled and save a tree. Use the proceeds to buy a special tree to plant in a park or other special public place. Ask a local radio station to sponsor a tree trivia contest and give away trees to winners. Conduct a tree search. Ask people to find large, unusual or historic trees in your community. Tell people to take a hike--a tree identification hike--and have girl scouts or boy scouts act as guides.

  • Dedicate a forest, or a tree, or a flower bed in a park, and make it an occasion to talk about stewardship. Get a local nursery or garden center to hold an open house or field day. Organize an Arbor Day Fair.

  • Get people together. Encourage neighborhood organizations to hold block parties and get their members to adopt and care for street trees in front of their homes. Pass out buttons. Give away trees.

  • Celebrate Arbor Day in a personal way by planting a tree yourself. It is an act of optimism and kindness, a labor of love and a commitment to stewardship.

  • Anyone can do it. Start a tree seed in a cup, or a seedling in a pot. If you have no place to set it out later, give it to someone who does, and then watch it grow together. Find a place to plant a seedling or a sapling or the largest tree you can handle alone.