My Portfolio: Bluffdale celebrates sixth year as Tree City, USA

On May 25 Bluffdale City planted a tree to commemorate this year’s Arbor Day. Bluffdale Elementary was invited to host the presentation and help to plant the tree. “Arbor Day can be celebrated any day,” Scott Zeidler, Wasatch Front community forester, said. Zeidler is from the Utah Department of Forestry and State Lands. He explained that Arbor Day is to help get students involved and really become stewards of the environment.
“We use trees to improve the quality of our lives,” Zeidler said.
The morning consisted of a small assembly held at Bluffdale Elementary where Ty Nielsen, Herriman City arborist and a Bluffdale resident, spoke to the students about the importance of trees. He presented the school with a copy of the book “I Can Name 50 Trees!” and gave a short slide presentation on the parts of trees.
The students became very excited when Nielsen introduced a special guest. Smokey the Bear, represented by McKay Christensen, high-fived students and even hugged some of them. Smokey was accompanied by Zeidler.
Jana Christensen, McKay’s mother, is the tree board chair for Bluffdale City. Christensen, along with Zeidler, talked to the students about the importance of trees and fire safety.
The Bluffdale City Tree Board provides an active blog with helpful gardening information and provides a monthly article in the Bluffdale Times. Members of the board have helped to plant hundreds of trees within the city.
The tree was planted at the Bluffdale City Park just behind the elementary school. Students walked with Smokey and the other guests to the site where Nielsen briefly explained how to properly plant a tree.
Each student was encouraged to bring soil or dirt from home to help bury the roots of the tree. They were called up as grade levels and allowed to dump the home-grown soil into the hole.
As part of the event, Bluffdale Elementary held a poster contest. The winners were announced during the assembly. The winning students were given certificates. These winners were Caden Stones, kindergarten; Kylee Snow, first grade; Kaelie Sorenson, second grade; Logan Cook, third grade; and Jossie Workman, sixth grade.
“We like to use this as an educational tool to help the students learn the value of trees in the community,” Blain Dietrich, Bluffdale City public works manager, said.
“Even though this is really a city thing to get these trees planted, we like to get the school involved,” he said. This is the third year of planting trees with the students.
Each year the city plants about 40 to 150 trees. This year the tree planted was an Emerald Queen. It is a fast growing, oval tree that has dark green foliage. The leaves will actually be a reddish color when first emerging in the spring but will turn a bright yellow in the fall.