February 22, 2020

1000 bald cypress trees were planted at Tucker Ranch on a chilly day February 22, 2020. Over 200 enthusiastic volunteers of all ages were part of this effort that could possibly impact the environment for 1000 years. You can venture out to Tucker Ranch, a recreational park and nature preserve in Winter Garden and see the trees for yourself.

 

We planted 1000 Bald Cypress Trees (Taxodium distichum) because they are a really important native Florida tree and are long lived, sometimes for thousands of years. They are native from New Jersey to Florida, Texas up the Mississippi River to Missouri.  They tolerate very wet as well as dry conditions.  They are deciduous conifers which means they look dead in the winter – even in Florida.   For many years, the oldest surviving Bald Cypress Tree called The Senator was in Big Tree Park in Longwood FL.  It was reputed to be over 3500 years old.  Sadly, it burnt to the ground in 2012.  A sister tree named Lady Liberty still stands in Big Tree Park and is reputed to be over 2000 years old.  

 

For our trees planting, there were 12 Zones identified at Tucker Ranch.  Laura Coar and her team from the City of Winter Garden determined how many trees would be planted in each zone and stakes were placed at the exact location for each tree.  These are the trees that were planted in one day!!!

 

Zone 1: 100 trees

Zone 2:  61 trees

Zone 3:  100 trees

Zone 4:  75 trees

Zone 5:  75 trees

Zone 6:  100 trees

Zone 7:  50 trees

Zone 8:  100 trees

Zone 9:  89 trees

Zone 10:  100 trees

Zone 11:  100 trees

Zone 12: 50 trees 

 

It was an exciting day with refreshments provided as volunteers arrived and were assigned zones with professional horticulturists as their zone leaders.  Lunch was provided for all volunteers by 4 Rivers.  We actually planted 1000 one -gallon Bald Cypress Trees in one day!!!

 

Our hope is that many of the trees we planted in 2020 will survive for at least 1000 years to come. If more plantings of this scale were done, the trees could remove about two-thirds of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions caused by human activity which is nearly 25% of the CO2 in the atmosphere. This is above and beyond the fact that they also clean the air and water, provide habitat for thousands of species and lower temperatures.

 

The one gallon trees we planted came from sponsor, Cherrylake in Groveland, Fl. They were planted from seed and were sustainably grown. A huge thank you to the City of Winter Garden for all the support, planning and assistance they provided to make the day a success. We thank our presenting sponsor, Healthy West Orange who made sure we had gloves and t-shirts for the project. We also thank other generous sponsors: Cherrylake, Minion Media Group, Ace Hardware College Park, Ace Hardware Winter Garden, Action Chapter of the FNGLA, Crabtree Ink, the Dr. Phillips Foundation, Duke Energy, Florida Nursery, Growers and Landscape Association (FNGLA), 4 Rivers Smokehouse and the McKinnon Corporation.  It was a fabulous event!!!!