Trees Virginia Annual Report

Details: Written by Becky Woodson, Trees Virginia; Published: 19 May 2021

Trees Virginia Annual Report - July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021

Academic Scholarships

During this reporting period, Trees Virginia awarded $7,500.00 in Undergraduate and Graduate scholarships.

Community College scholarship recipient

Mackenzie Shull, Dabney Lancaster Community College, Associates Degree - Forest Management Technology

Undergraduate scholarship recipients

William Fowler - University of Lynchburg - Bachelors Degree in Environmental Science

Felicity Zimmerman - Eastern Mennonite University - Environmental Science

Grace Lumsden-Cook - Virginia Commonwealth University, Environmental Studies Class of 2021

Graduate scholarship recipients

Merri Collins - George Mason University, PhD Student Urban Ecology and Conservation Lab

Angela Gaal - George Mason University, MS student in the School of Systems Biology

Trees Virginia Workshops - 2020-2021

Trees Virginia held virtual workshops to provide education on urban forestry and tree care to hundreds of professionals, volunteers, and other community members.

Roanoke Workshop Webinar Series (March 2021)

Northern Virginia Urban Forestry Roundtable

"Brood X of the Periodical Cicada"

Southeast Virginia Urban Forestry Roundtable

• How To Kill a Tree (March, 2021)

Big Tree Interns

Trees Virginia continues to support the work of two interns for the Virginia Big Tree Program.

The 2016 Virginia Big Tree Program Intern was Alexandria Cassell, a double major student in the Environmental Resources and Environmental Informatics programs at Virginia Tech. Alexandria assisted the Big Tree Program coordinator in managing the Big Tree Register and recertifying trees throughout the state. Alexandria worked with volunteers to recertify 136 trees on the current big tree list (all big trees need to be recertified every 10 years) and also managed the process of certifying 45 new tree nominations.

David Formella (2017 Big Tree Intern) is a Natural Resources Conservation major in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech. He is also a Marine option midshipman at VT, on track to commission into the United States Marine Corps as an officer in 2019. As part of his Big Tree internship, he measured newly nominated trees and led efforts to re-measure the 195 big trees due for recertification.

Tree Stewards

Trees Virginia supports Tree Stewards, volunteers providing education and tree care in their communities. There are more than 475 Tree Steward volunteers in a dozen different groups across Virginia, and they have completed more than 13,000 hours of service to benefit urban forests.

There is currently a virtual two-day Tree Steward Symposium "Standing Tall, Growing Together" planned for June 24 and June 25, 2021.

Municipal Forestry Institute Scholarships

Trees Virginia haso provided scholarships to professionals to attend the Society of Municipal Arborist’s Municipal Forestry Institute, covering the full cost of their registrations. Past recipients include:

Steven Traylor, City of Norfolk
Nick Drunasky (of Fairfax County)
Alexander J. (A. J.) Elton (of Richmond)
Rachel Griesmar-Zakhar (of Fairfax)

Trees Virginia continues to:

fundraise for the Bonnie Appleton Memorial Fund and
provide funds to communities to plant Arbor Day Trees, reimbursing up to $100 for the cost of a tree.

Did You Know:

Every state has an official State Tree. Virginia adopted the flowering dogwood Cornaceae Cornus floridaas the State Tree on February 24, 1956. The dogwood is well distributed throughout the...
Trees properly placed around buildings can reduce air conditioning needs by 30 percent and save 20-50 percent in heating energy.
Most trees do not have a tap root.
In one day, one large tree can lift up to 100 gallons of water out of the ground and discharge it into the air.
Well-maintained trees and shrubs can increase property value by up to 14%.
A mature tree removes almost 70 times more pollution than a newly planted tree.
Most tree roots are in the top 12 inches of soil.
Trees are the largest living organisms on earth: some coastal redwoods are more than 360 feet tall.
One large tree can provide a supply of oxygen for two people.
Trees are some of the oldest living organisms on earth: some bristle-cone pines are thought to be more than 5000 years old.
A birdhouse hung on a young tree branch, does not move up the tree as the tree grows.