Dear Editor:
“The newly planted trees are dying! The leaves are turning brown and falling off.” That is the message the Hoboken Quality of Life Coalition and its Committee for a Green Hoboken as well as the City’s Shade Tree Commission have been receiving over the last several weeks. Residents have seen brown leaves that fall to the ground and are concerned that the trees planted in April and early May, especially the Red oaks, are already dead. We have it on good authority that is not the case.
Lisa Simms, Executive Director of NJ Tree Foundation who has been checking the 100 trees recently planted, notes that the intense rainfall in the early spring swamped the roots of many of the trees depriving them of oxygen which caused them to go into a type of shock. They have an even chance to survive If they receive water every week. There are bags at the base of each new tree called Gator bags that can hold up to 20 gallons of water. Those bags need to be filled weekly. That is the TLC trees need to survive.
Local landscaper Bart Bakelaar of B. Bakelaar Landscape Design has already provided help by assisting with the planting of the trees and the placement of the gators. He and all those who volunteer help the trees to survive.
You can be one of those volunteers by becoming a Treekeeper who will water an adopted tree(s) through the summer to October 15. Contact David Calamoneri at Pubic Works dcalmoneri@hobokennj.org to learn where the trees are located and how you can help.
Thanks for caring.
Helen Manogue, Coordinator,
Hoboken Quality of Life Coalition
Thom Chartier, Committee for a Green Hoboken
Steve Fahmie and James Tricario,
Hoboken Shade Tree Commission