University News

Arbor Day Planting to be Held at University Residence

April 26, 2022

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MACOMB, IL – Arbor Day 2022 will take place on Friday, April 29, and to celebrate, Western Illinois University will plant a Black Gum tree (Nyssa Sylvatica) tree at the University Residence on Wigwam Hollow Road on Thursday, April 28.

The tree planting ceremony will take place at 1:15 p.m. WIU President Guiyou Huang will kick off the event with a reading of an Arbor Day proclamation. WIU has been named a Tree Campus USA by the Arbor Day Foundation for 10 consecutive years. Students from WIU School of Agriculture Senior Agricultural Research Technician Paul Blome's Forestry 407 Arboriculture class, along with the Campus Tree Advisory Committee, will take part in Thursday's ceremony. In addition, Western will be presented with the Tree Campus USA Flag for its 10 year recognition from the Arbor Day Foundation.

Western's landscape maintenance department, within facilities management, maintains more than nearly 2,700 trees on the Macomb campus. Each fall and spring, as part of the Western's volunteer campus beautification program We Care, trees are planted and/or mulching is completed around existing trees. Also as a part of Arbor Day, Forestry Instructor Paul Blome and WIU urban forestry management students lead tree plantings with elementary schools in western Illinois, a tradition that was started in 1993 by WIU Forestry Professor Tom Green. In addition, each spring, two trees are planted on WIU's Macomb campus to honor WIU employees and students who have passed away.

According to WIU English Professor Emeritus and Historian John Hallwas, the WIU campus was designed by landscape architect Thomas Hawkes of Chicago, and in 1903-1905 noted horticulturalist John Van Ness Standish selected and supervised the planting of approximately 500 trees.

A complete WIU tree inventory can be found at https://gis.wiu.edu/js/wiutrees/

Posted By: University Communications (U-Communications@wiu.edu)
Office of University Communications & Marketing