Georgia Arbor Day

 

Serviceberry

Georgia Arbor Day comes the third Friday in February because it’s a good time for Georgians to plant trees. If you didn’t plant a tree this week, however, you still have some time. I would say that good conditions for tree planting in Georgia - cool and moist conditions - continue into March.

When it comes to choosing plants for your yard, especially plants that make a positive impact on your local ecosystem, a native tree offers a lot of benefits over a non-native one. Research has shown that woody plants like oaks and maples support more insects in their life cycle than perennials. 

Let’s consider two choices: a native serviceberry (Amelanchier) vs. a non-native crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia). According to data compiled by Doug Tallamy and his team, serviceberry can support 119 species of butterfies/moths while crape myrtle supports just 3. If you had a small yard and wanted to help grow more butterflies/moths then which would you plant? If you wanted to support birds, the serviceberry wins in two ways: it has tasty fruit that birds adore and it grows caterpillars for them to eat too.

I’ve written about Arbor Day quite a few times over the years. As a tree lover, it’s a topic that never gets old. When my kids were in elementary school, I enjoyed helping the students there celebrate. In my post from 2012, I shared some of those experiences. In my post from 2013, I encouraged people to plant for the future and shared Joyce Kilmer’s lovely tree poem.

In my post from 2015, I expanded on why using a native tree over a non-native tree provided more benefit to the local ecosystem. My post from 2018 provided a list of my tree profiles over the years to help people learn more about some specific trees. It was truly a celebration of trees.

If you’ve already got enough native trees, plop a chair under them and start dreaming about your perennial garden (because, yes, we need perennials too!).