Tis the season for Arbor Day and Earth Day and various communities and gardens are doing their best to bring awareness to the plight of trees worldwide. Longwood Gardens is no exception, with extensive Arbor Day celebrations planned for Friday, April 27 and Saturday, April 28.

Longwood Gardens is located in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, and boasts 1,077 acres and twenty outdoor gardens. Breathtaking in beauty and carefully cultivated horticulture, the gardens are vast and expansive, with fountains and landscaping skill providing beauty at every turn. As with many professional gardens, rubber mulch is used in a variety of ways, for both aesthetic appeal and landscaping purposes. Longwood Gardens is gearing up for Arbor Day with a variety of events planned.

The first four hundred guests at the Arbor Day Celebration will receive a voucher for a free tree seedling. The activities will allow guests to meet the arborists, learn about local birds and how Longwood’s natural and forested areas provide excellent bird habitat, children are invited to “Gear Up” and experience what it is like to be an Arborist, and guests can take a Champion Tree Tour and marvel at some of the biggest trees in Pennsylvania.

The activities include:

ARBORIST EQUIPMENT DISPLAY
Our arborists will show and demonstrate some of the unique equipment they use to care for our trees. See their climbing gear, chipper, and a stump grinder.

TALK TO AN ARBORIST
Get answers to your tree questions and learn the best practices for caring for your trees at home. Ever wonder what makes a tree a Champion tree? Come find out.

TREES ARE COOL
Did you know trees keep us all cool? Discover more about trees and how they benefit us and our environment. Learn about trees and see samples of different types of wood and bark.

KIDS CLIMB
Young tree climbers can join Longwood’s arborists and climb into Longwood’s trees. For safety purposes, trying on the arborists’ climbing gear is only available for children ages 6 to 12 years old.

TREES ARE HOME SWEET HOME FOR BIRDS!
Come learn all about how you can help birds and how you can look for birds near their favorite tree habitats.

BIRD OF A FEATHER KIDS ACTIVITY STATION
Join us for some fun interactive activities for kids to learn all about our remarkable friends the birds.

CHAMPION TREE TOURS
Go on a walking tour with our expert guides as they visit some of the tallest and oldest trees in Pennsylvania.

KITE FLYING
Bring your kite and fly it over our green Cow Lot.

Governments around the world are becoming aware and, in turn, making others aware of the necessity of recycling and going green. A large push is made annually in the weeks after Christmas, when thousands of homes house dying Christmas trees. In days of old, people just left their trees out with the trash. In today’s day and age, however, local and state governments are urging homeowners to recycle their trees and keep the planet healthy.

Right after Christmas New York held their annual Mulchfest, where people were able to drop their trees off at numerous parks around the city and have them ground into mulch chips. Other states and counties are following suit. The Coloradoan reports that January 17 is the deadline for homeowners to recycle trees. Residents are asked to remove all ornaments, lights, strings, wires, fake snow etc. before taking the tree to one of the drop-off points. The city will process the trees into mulch for gardening and landscaping purposes, which will be free for the public in the spring at Larimer County Landfill. At the Hamilton-Wenham Green, one dollar from each tree recycled will go to help local charities, a way to pass on the goodwill.

Old Christmas trees are turned into wood mulch for gardening, but using rubber mulch is also an eco-friendly way to garden and floor playgrounds. Rubber tire mulch is made from tires that have breathed their last breaths. Another form of recycling, rubber mulch has many excellent uses, and is just as eco-friendly as the wood chips that are made out of Christmas trees.

While the majority of the government sponsored programs that recycle used Christmas trees turn them into mulch, some cities have other ideas. In St. Louis, for example, the trees are drowned in marked areas of lakes. The trees on the bottoms of the lakes become homes for thousands of fish for years to come, providing protection from predators and a gathering place for fish to feed and spawn. Since state laws a few years back prohibited counties from throwing trees into landfills, different municipalities have come up with creative solutions. Like other cities, the trees that are not thrown into lakes are turned into landscape mulch.

On a whole the number of recycled trees has dipped over the years, but some counties say that the worsened economy may have attributed to the figures because as the prices of fresh-cut trees rise, more people turn to artificial trees.

By recycling their Christmas trees, people have a chance to let Christmas live on, by giving the gifts of health and life to planet earth.

  To an amateur, a garden in      the winter looks neglected, like  the owner left it to fend for  itself, and come spring, will  renew the beauty once more.  However, a lot of planning and  preparation goes into a garden  before the winter hits, to  ensure that it will survive the  season, and blossom once more  in the spring. There are some gardening basics that must be done once the trees start to turn colors, such as weeding, spreading mulch, etc. Gardening in the fall allows you a chance to enjoy the crisp weather, and keep your garden healthy and happy.

First, it’s important to weed your garden and start a compost pile for dead annuals and vegetables. Be careful that weeds don’t creep into the compost pile, so that next year’s garden will not have weeds. While cleaning out the garden, dig fertilizer and soil amendments into the soil so that it will be ready for next year’s planting.

Spreading a fall fertilizer will keep the grass healthy during the winter and protect it from the elements, as will spreading a layer of good quality mulch. Some gardeners stick to the classic wood mulch, but many are turning to rubber mulch. Rubber landscape mulch is more weather resistant, and will better protect the grass and soil during the winter. Rubber, as a non porous material, allows water to flow down to the roots rather than absorbing it along the way, like wood chips.

Rubber mulch is also eco-friendly, a cause that is embraced by gardeners worldwide. Made from recycled rubber, the landscaping material saves space in landfills by reusing old tires. Fears that toxins in the tires would leach into the ground have been unfounded, as the benefits far outweigh the cons. Rubber mulch is more pricey than wood chips, but it’s important to keep in mind that it also requires no maintenance, and does not have to be replenished annually.

It’s important to keep raking leaves and cutting the grass, as fungus can grow in long grass during the winter. By running the leaves over with a lawn mower, you are manufacturing more compost, or you can pack the crushed leaves around plants.

While preparing, think about what worked this past summer, and how you may want to change the layout or different elements of your garden. Plants or flowers that have to be planted in advance should be seeded now, and you should plan the layout of next year’s garden. Until then, your job is to help your garden huddle in to survive the cold winter.