Residents of ten central Iowa counties will be able to spruce up their yards with new, high-quality trees for planting this fall with a special deal through a non-profit that’s headquartered in Marion.
Megan Schneider, director of Des Moines area programs of Trees Forever, says they’re offering eight species of trees that can be ordered now for pickup early next month.
“We have a combination of both overstory, so your large shade trees, and understory, so more ornamental, could be flowering trees,” Schneider says. “Those are blackgum, catalpa, flowering dogwood. We have pawpaw, which if you buy two different species, those will actually produce fruit, red buckeye, smoketree, sugar hackberry, and a sweet bay magnolia.”
The trees will be in three-gallon containers and will stand between one and five feet tall.
“They are all on the DNR preferred species list,” Schneider says. “So they’re all trees that may not be native to Iowa, but they will survive here well.”
Participating counties in the initiative include: Boone, Story, Marshall, Guthrie, Dallas, Polk, Jasper, Madison, Warren, and Marion. Property owners can reserve up to five trees at $20 each to be picked up Saturday, October 10th at the distribution event in Des Moines.
“We suggest once you get your tree, they can sit in a car since they are a smaller tree and we will have a group of volunteers to help load those up,” Schneider says. “And then we suggest planning them as quickly as possible, within like 24 to 48 hours would be best just to get those watered in, allow them to establish before winter comes.”
This tree distribution is part of the One Million Trees Central Iowa initiative, a goal to plant, preserve, and create policy to expand the tree canopy in central Iowa by one million trees through 2032.
Reserve a tree by visiting TreesForever.org/Adopt.