First and foremost this week I have a correction.
In my column last week about hummingbirds, I recommended using powdered sugar in feeders. The recipe I shared should have said to mix four parts water with one part of granulated sugar. Thanks to the alert Leader reader who questioned my mistaken recipe, the result of an editing error. Brown sugar, honey or any artificial sweeteners are also all incorrect ingredients.
I felt bad about the error but was cheered by the good fortune I found on Earth Day when I went to pick up my free tree from moinvasives.org and the state Department of Conservation.
In return for cutting down a callery pear tree in my yard this spring, I drove to Park Hills to get a new green hawthorn tree. On my way there, I was hoping to cross paths with another Jefferson County resident also coming down for a replacement tree.
Enter the Boyer family from Herculaneum. Jamie Boyer and her three children – Grayson, 8, and Aiden and Adalynn, both 6 – posed for a picture with their new flowering dogwood tree. It was not this mom’s first rodeo; she knew from past experience that she had to act fast in entering her tree removal photo to get one of the limited flowering dogwoods available.
Julie Norris, from the conservation department, said the reason they offer so few flowering dogwoods is because of the challenge the native tree presents when transplanted for landscaping.
“They are an edge tree and people tend to want to place them in the center of the yard,” she said. “They need the shade of the understory.”
Immediately, I asked about the green hawthorn tree I had already put in the back of my truck, to make sure I picked the right spot in my yard. Jilian Cichon, a private land forester for the department, said I needn’t worry about messing up with that little native. (I guess she hadn’t seen my powdered sugar recipe.)
“(Green hawthorn trees) will grow almost anywhere,” Cichon said. “That’s why we like to offer them. Sun or shade, even close to the road where salt may leech into the soil.”
The conservation department employees did suggest that I give my tree plenty of water that evening, which I did as soon as I planted it. I am hoping for big things from the little tree that is expected to grow about 20 feet tall and produce white flowers in the spring and red fruits in the fall for birds and other wildlife.
The pickup location was on the Mineral Area College main campus at the Industry and Technology Center. Norris said one of the reasons MAC was selected as a distribution site was the college’s commitment to removing invasive Bradford pear trees.
“This (campus) road had been lined with Callery pear trees, and they cut them all down,” she said. “The people here know that the trees have been removed.” Her role with the department is priority habitat coordinator, which she explained works with the community to keep wild habitats healthy.
The annual Callery pear “buyback” program is coordinated by the Missouri Invasive Plant Council in partnership with Forest ReLeaf of Missouri, Forrest Keeling Nursery, and the conservation department. The window for registration is open from mid-March to mid-April each spring. For more information visit moinvasives.org.
John Winkelman has been writing about outdoors news and issues in Jefferson County for more than 30 years and was the Associate Editor for Outdoor Guide Magazine. If you have story ideas for the Leader outdoor news page, e-mail ogmjohnw@aol.com, and you can find more outdoor news and updates at johnjwink.com.