Livingston Loves Trees Kicks Off Spring Planting

Livingston’s community boulevards are springing to life this week as volunteer crews from the PCEC’s “Livingston Loves Trees” initiative plant more than 60 trees! 

To mitigate the impacts of climate change and invasive insects and improve the resiliency of our community forest, PCEC teamed up with some passionate volunteers and launched Livingston Loves Trees Fund in 2021, a restricted fund to purchase, plant and care for new trees.

Over the winter, the Tree Team worked with over 60 local residents willing to adopt the new boulevard trees, so the young trees can be watered and cared for once they are in the ground.

With the help of AmeriCorps NCCC volunteers, we hit the southeast letter streets this morning, planting Montana-hardy maples, lindens, honeylocusts, flowering crabapples, elms, bur oaks, and Japanese tree lilacs, each tree bringing beauty and diversity to our community forest.

This effort would not be possible without the dedicated commitment of some INCREDIBLE community volunteers and donors. Preparing for planting this week was no small task, and it took hundreds of volunteer hours to identify the trees, coordinate with residents as they selected a tree, ensure the city permitting and utility locates were completed, and mark the planting sites. Please help us to thank Tree Team volunteers: Thomas Shands, Susan Regele, Joe Armburst, Rita Rozier, the Livingston Tree Board, and the local businesses Paradise Landscape & Stone, Shields Valley Farm & Nursery and Litchfield Landscape Designs. If you see our Tree Team out working, be sure to say hi!

We are grateful and heartened by the amount of interest and support for community trees. The generous donations and thousands of hours the Tree Team volunteers put into this effort will really be a gift to future generations. It makes us very proud to be part of this community!

If we have the funding and volunteer capacity, we hope to make this an annual program. Have an empty spot on your boulevard that could use a tree? If you missed the opportunity to adopt a tree, you may sign up here and be considered for next year’s planting.