Students in the Trees

April 11, 2012

The Tree Research & Service class has been busy helping the trees around the Burlington area. This month, we started by meeting with Kit Anderson, a professor at UVM. She taught us about relationships between trees and humans, such as the Live Oak society in Louisiana, made up completely of live oak trees. Then, we worked with Branch Out Burlington (BOB!) at the Burlington Community Tree Nursery. We removed the winter tree guards from the trees and then loosened the trees from the dirt so that the head arborist of Burlington can quickly remove them and transplant them to the streets of Burlington. In the past month we also climbed the large pine trees on the south side of the school. We learned about harnesses and the safety of climbing trees from Warren Spinner, the head arborist of Burlington. We learned three different styles of climbing trees: leg hook climbing, harness climbing, and belaying up. Finally, we worked at Perkin’s Pier. We mulched the bushes and trimmed the trees that had invasive pests. It has been a fun month with Ruth, and we are going to continue helping Burlington’s trees for the remainder of the year.

– posted by Eli Hulse and Justin Decatur