Courtesy Photo | From left: Diana De Stefano and Rebecca Winsett, tour participants; Arlington National...... read more read more
Arlington National Cemetery recognized Arbor Day April 29 with its sixth annual celebration, adding another tree to the cemetery’s vast population.
ANC Horticulturalist Kelly Wilson led a guided public tour of the cemetery’s Memorial Arboretum before a ceremonial planting of a special cultivar of dogwood tree in Section 24.
The arboretum was established as part of the cemetery’s 150th anniversary in 2014 and received accreditation from Morton Arboretum in Illinois in 2015, according to the Arlington National Cemetery website.
The cemetery is home to approximately 8,700 trees and about 300 different species of trees, Wilson said. Arboretum status is maintained by meeting a specific set of standards, including educational efforts like tours and labeling the various species of trees within the cemetery’s walls.
“We’ve increased the educational aspect, giving more tours and labeling about 300 species of trees in the cemetery,” Wilson said.
About 200 new trees are planted every year on the cemetery’s more than 600 acres.
“We try to do that during the month of March, before a lot of them leaf out,” Wilson said. “But it’s always dependent on the weather. We’re still planting right now because we’ve been bumped back – it was cold for a long time.”
Trees are typically planted to replace old ones.
“If we lose a tree in a particular spot, we want to try to maintain…so we’ll try to [plant a tree] right back in that spot,” Wilson said. “We lose trees from various things – insects, disease, wind, storms.”
Wilson added that the cemetery’s staff keep an eye out for new locations that could house trees.
“If we also see an area where we can plant a tree, we’ll put one in,” she said. “It becomes harder in the newer sections because burial space gets priority.”
The cemetery’s tree population is likely to increase thanks to two expansions: the Millennium Project, which is under construction and will add 27 acres to the cemetery’s north side near Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall; and the newly proposed Southern Expansion project, which is still in the planning stages and would add another 38 acres near the Air Force Memorial.
Some trees in the cemetery are over 200 years old, according to Wilson.
“The older trees are going to be over in Section 1, which is in the northwestern corner of the cemetery that butts up against [JBM-HH],” she said.
The most dominant tree in the cemetery is the Oak, which makes up about 25 percent of the total population, according to Wilson.
Dogwoods were once the cemetery’s dominant tree, but were decimated by disease over the years. After the tour, Wilson, cemetery officials and tour attendees capped off the Arbor Day event by planting a dogwood, the state tree of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
This particular tree, Cornus Florida, of the Appalachian Spring cultivar, was found in the Catoctin Mountains near Camp David in North Carolina, and is resistant to anthracnose, the disease that took such a toll on the cemetery’s dogwood population.
“We’re really happy that we’ve added another dogwood, and this is the first of the Appalachian Spring cultivar in the cemetery,” Wilson said.
ANC Deputy Superintendent of Cemetery Operations Brion Moore thanked the staff and highlighted the importance of the tree planting.
“Their efforts go a long way to maintain and enhance the beauty, the appearance and the history of Arlington National Cemetery,” he said. “Hopefully this tree will live on forever, certainly past our lifetimes, and those that have the opportunity to come by and see it will hopefully understand the importance of what you’re doing today.”
To learn more about Arlington National Cemetery’s Memorial Arboretum, visit http://go.usa.gov/cun2H.
| Date Taken: | 05.05.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 05.05.2016 14:39 |
| Story ID: | 197435 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE MYER-HENDERSON HALL, VA, US |
| Web Views: | 27 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, ANC celebrates Arbor Day with tree planting, by Guv Callahan, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT