Tuscaloosa offering free tree seedlings

Tuscaloosa, Alabama – The Arbor Day Foundation, the Alabama Forestry Commission (AFC) and the City of Tuscaloosa Tree Commission are encouraging citizens to join in this year’s Alabama Tree Recovery Campaign. Free tree seedlings will be given away on Saturday, February 25, 2012 from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. at the Cherry Shelter located at Snow Hinton Park, 1000 Hargrove Road East.

Thanks to the funds raised through the Alabama Tree Recovery Campaign, the Alabama Forestry Commission has donated over 6,500 tree seedlings to the giveaway in addition to the 3,500 tree seedlings provided by the Tuscaloosa Tree Commission and a local non-profit agency.

Over 10,000 tree seedlings of the following varieties will be available at no cost:

Bald Cypress
Crepe Myrtle
Dogwood
Fringetree
Live oak
Northern Red Oak
Red Maple
Redbud
Sawtooth Oak
Shumard Oak
Southern Magnolia
Sugar Maple
Tupelo
White Oak

The City of Tuscaloosa is one of the 16 communities to receive seedlings from the Alabama Forestry Commission in an effort to reforest that state’s communities damaged in the April 2011 tornadoes. According to AFC officials, 30,000 seedlings will be given away in North Alabama this year in this first phase of the Alabama Tree Recovery Campaign, a large-scale, multi-year initiative launched jointly in June of 2011 by the Alabama Forestry Commission and the Arbor Day Foundation. In an effort to restore the state’s urban tree canopy and the many environmental, economic, and social benefits those trees provide, the campaign will continue tree distribution into the fall and winter of each year to other communities that suffered destruction.