Loose Leaf Notes

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on March 5, 2020.

Sunday was the first planting party for the More Trees Please! Forest Initiative, a new non-profit that focuses on working with landowners to plant more trees in Floyd.

“Trees provide wildlife habitat, they clean air, they clean water, they provide shade and food and they draw down carbon. It’s a climate solution that’s non-controversial,” said Mary Freday, who spearheaded the initiative. After reading environmental books, watching films about grassroots efforts to curb Climate Change and being inspired by the global Trillion Trees planting campaign, Freday asked herself ‘what can one person do to make a difference?’ and More Trees Please! was born.

Since its inception, the initiative has drawn about 10 members who have been putting the word out through flyers, press releases and by word of mouth. Freday explained that landowners pay for the trees they want planted. More Trees Please! provides free labor for planting, along with stakes, bird nets and tubes that were donated by a local, former tree planter (for as long as they last). The group also connects landowners with tree sources. “We get most of our trees from the VDF (Virginia Department of Forestry) Nursery,” said Freday. “They have Virginia seedlings and native species and are located in Augusta County, a doable distance for pick-ups.”

Tara Daystar, whose family hosted the first tree planting party, is a More Trees Please! member and is working on a webpage for the initiative. She and her husband, Scott Katznelson, and their son Rowan have lived on their 8-acre solar-powered homestead for 8 years. During that time, they have been actively restoring their land, which was primarily an overgrazed cattle field, with the goal of creating a butterfly and firefly habitat sanctuary.

Daystar spoke of the group’s interest in educational outreach and connecting people with the right information and programs, such as the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Riparian Forest Buffer Program, which provides federal grants to establish buffers that protect waterways.  “We can’t plant all the trees. If we can get government funds and other programs to take over some aspects, we’ll get more done. Hooking people up with the right program for what they want to do is ideal,” she said.  Both she and Freday agreed on the importance of partnering with sponsors and donors and pursuing grants for the More Trees Please! initiative.

Under blue skies, 40 trees – mulberry, black locust and Chinese chestnuts – were planted at the Daystar/ Katznelson property by about twenty volunteers. The volunteers included a group of Freday’s students from Virginia Tech, where she teaches English as a second language at the university’s Language and Culture Institute.

Another tree planting party is set for Saturday at the home of Paul Kitchen, a More Trees Please! member who attended Sunday’s planting party. As many as eighty-five trees will be planted on Kitchen’s Christiansburg Pike’s 18 acres, including some favorite blooming redbuds.

Daystar and Freday ceremoniously put the first More Trees Please! tree in the ground. “We have to think about what we can do with our own two hands,” Freday said. – Colleen  Redman

Note: More Trees Please! can be reached at  more.trees.please.reforestation@gmail.com Their webpage is located HERE.Check out THIS Roanoke Times story about how hundreds of Virginia Tech students planted 12,050 trees to fight climate change the day before the More Trees Please! and where Mary Freday is quoted.