Free Trees in Lubbock Saturday, and How to Get Yours in the Ground
Science Spectrum and the Texas A&M Forest Service will give away trees Saturday for Texas Arbor Day. Here is how to plant one so it survives a South Plains summer.
Some Lubbock families can take home a free tree on Saturday, just in time for fall planting.
The giveaway
Science Spectrum and the Texas A&M Forest Service will host a Texas Arbor Day Celebration on Saturday, Oct. 24, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the museum lobby. Trees will be given away while supplies last, and Smokey Bear is scheduled to appear from 11:30 a.m. to noon. The Forest Service also lists the tree giveaway on its calendar for 11 a.m. that day.
The museum calls the event free but adds that standard museum and OMNI rates apply, so expect to pay if you go beyond the lobby. Saturday museum hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Arrive early if you want a tree.
Where the trees come from
The Forest Service runs its West Texas Nursery six miles northeast of Lubbock, about a mile west of Idalou. It has grown seedlings for more than 45 years. The 53-acre site can produce up to 140,000 container seedlings and 200,000 bareroot seedlings.
How to plant it
The Forest Service's Texas Tree Planting Guide gives this advice:
Dig wide, not deep. Make the hole at least twice as wide as the root ball and no deeper than it.
Test drainage. Fill the hole with water. If it takes more than 24 hours to drain, choose another site.
Set it high. Keep the root collar, just above the roots, level with the ground or slightly above.
Clean the roots. Remove wires and burlap.
Backfill with native soil. Use the same soil you dug out, with no amendments. Settle it with water instead of packing it down.
Mulch. Spread two to three inches out to the drip line, without touching the trunk.
Water deeply. A new tree needs six to eight gallons per inch of trunk diameter each week for at least the first two years.
Protect it. If animals are a problem, put a wire cage at least three feet wide and four feet tall around the tree.
Skip the fertilizer. Don't fertilize during the first growing season.
See what grows here
For ideas on what thrives on the South Plains, walk the Lubbock Memorial Arboretum at 4111 University Ave. in K.N. Clapp Park. Admission is free. Its first tree, a pecan, was planted on Arbor Day in 1962. Its founders set out to prove which trees could make it in West Texas, and they learned that losing a few plants is "not a reason to quit trying."
That is good advice for any gardener. A tree planted this fall will shade someone long after we are gone. That is a small, quiet way to love your neighbor.
Related on Dock Line: Palestine Master Gardeners Set a Fall Tree Sale. Here's How to Plant One Right.; Seguin Master Gardeners Bring Their Plant Sale to Pecan Fest Saturday
