Community Corner

Volunteers Do Double Duty in Planting Day at Hart Park

'A few' more donated trees turns into a few hundred, with the result that more than 700 were planted all together on Saturday morning.

Things doubled up in a number of ways Saturday morning at , some in expected ways and one unexpected.

Organizers planned to both remove invasive weeds and trees and, for the first time, to plant in new native trees and shrubs along the river bank, and so it was.

Two new groves of trees were intended to be planted in a broader open area east of North 68th Street, and so they were.

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And it was hoped that volunteers could get around 300 to 400 specimens planted all together – and instead dug in about double that number.

Rosemary Wehnes, president of the Friends of Hart Park Foundation (FOHP), had purchased 320 potted trees and shrubs with a grant from the Sweet Water Trust.

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But, she said, she was also contacted by a man who said he could bring "a few" bare-root tree seedlings from his place Up North.

He brought 400 – and with plenty of hands making light work, all got planted.

Most of those hands belonged to employees of Kohl's Corp., which sent 200 volunteers to help out as part of its corporate community service/teambuilding initiative.

One of them, Chris, from Campbellsport, brought his son, Tim, and his pickup truck, which he put at the disposal of FOHP.

They hauled a load of nursery stock from the Muellner Building garage to the far eastern end of the park, then pitched in with a bigger task.

A large pile of mulch for the planting project had been dropped about 100 yards short of where it was wanted, so Chris and Tim opened a tarp in their pickup bed and began to shovel.

On their own, they loaded, moved and unloaded two full cargos of mulch, making life much easier for the team of volunteers that arrived shortly to begin the actual planting.

They were 23 Marquette University students, all from the physician's assistant program, volunteering community service time.

Told the natural history of the oak savanna they were to be planting, each "adopted" a personal bur oak – there happened to be exactly 23 of them – and "discovered" on their own the spot where it seemed to want to grow.

Most said they wanted to return regularly through the summer to water their trees and in coming years to monitor their progress.

Then they were asked to each select a shrub and plant it near their trees, for company.

One student asked what her shrub was – she did not recognize the name American filbert.

She was told it was also known as hazelnut, the same as the nut flavoring found in a hazelnut latte.

"Oh, cool!" she said. "I'm going to get one and come and sit by my tree and drink it."


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