Woodland School goes to seedlings

Students mark Arbor Day by planting 340 trees of all sorts.

By: Melissa Hayes
   MONROE — Planting 340 seedlings might sound like a big project, but for one fourth-grade class at Woodland School, it was all in a day’s work.
   The empty grassy alcove between the original building and addition was transformed into a nursery when Sue Lowery and Kristen Hummel’s 22 students took on the challenge of planting 500 seedlings for Arbor Day on April 29.
   The students were able to plant 340 seedlings before they ran out of space. When more space can be found and the soil is tilled, the remaining seedlings will be planted on school property.
   The trees — winterberry holly, Norway spruce, tulip poplar, white pine, green ash, silky dogwood and sweet gum — are all native to New Jersey and were free from the state Tree Foundation.
   Ms. Lowery said she had to attend a training session and promise that the trees would be planted on public property in order to receive them.
   The trees will remain on school property for two years. When the students are sixth-graders, they will be able to dig them up and distribute them throughout the district.
   "The board office has already said they would take some," Ms. Lowery said. "They could also use some at Mill Lake."
   The project was a team effort. School Principal Victor Soriano personally roto-tilled the land and helped plant seedlings. Vice Principal Dori Alvich and about 10 other parent and staff volunteers also were on hand to help.
   The students were broken up into seven groups and each assigned a row of seedlings to plant.
   Steve Borrelli, whose son Chris is a student in the class, was in charge of the first group of students.
   Mr. Borrelli’s team had the routine down and worked as a well-oiled machine. He helped dig the holes and handed off seedlings to the students, who then planted them. He then handed out mulch, which the students packed in tightly around the seedlings.
   "You’ve got to pat it down nice and tight otherwise you’ll get fungus," he said.
   They were quickly on to the next row before the other students had finished their first row.
   Mr. Borrelli said planting some seedlings at the school was light work compared to helping his father plant 700 pine trees on his 240-acre farm.
   Throughout the course of the event, the students worked together, sharing tools and helpful advice.
   "Wait, it’s leaning," Josh Roth, 9, told classmate Jeff McNulty, 10, as they planted.
   Josh corrected the seedling and continued planting.
   The students working closer to the school addition side of the dirt patch had to battle clay soil to dig their holes.
   "You have to bang on it because it’s so hard," Varune Bewtra, 9, said as she used her garden trowel to chisel away at the dirt.
   Jeremy Reid, 11, worked one row in front of Varune and agreed that the dirt was definitely harder in their section.
   "It’s like rock almost, you have to slam the shovel into it," he said.
   Ms. Hummel’s husband, Christian, assisted students having a hard time by using a pole digger to create small holes.
   Darby Owen, 9, was planting seedlings and admitted that luckily she didn’t have to do a lot of the digging.
   "Mr. Hummel did most of the holes. We only did one or two," she said.
   Joe Meyers, 10, didn’t get any help from Mr. Hummel, but he didn’t mind.
   "I like digging stuff out," he said.
   Ms. Lowery said the event went very well even though they ran out of room for all the seedlings.
   "The kids are great," she said.
   Ms. Lowery’s students have been working with plants all year as part of a grant proposal she put together to bring a greenhouse to the school. They planted a few hundred plants between St. Patrick’s Day and mid-April. The plants were sold during the music program’s spring concert as a fundraiser.
   Thanks to a grant from the Monroe Education Foundation, Ms. Lowery was able to purchase a small greenhouse for the school and the students will be able to take the money from the sale to do more plantings.
   Ms. Lowery said the seedling project was perfect for her class because the students will be in their last year at the school when the trees need to be removed.
   "The nice thing is that they will be able to see them grow," she said.