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The Elgin Parks and Recreation Center honored Texas Arbor Day with its fourth annual tree planting celebration, bringing more canopy to Elgin Memorial Park with some help from local farms and ranches.
Over 50 volunteers picked up shovels to bring more life to the park grounds, planting over 25 trees and shrubs for both local residents and wildlife.
“We know once the ecosystem is complete, it works,” said Program Manager Elizabeth Marzec.
Many of the trees planted are Texas native, placed in the park’s second rendition of its wild areas. What may look like a garden lacking landscape is actually the center’s effort to sustain wild ecosystems.
The sections have already seen success, with its plantings providing cover for small critters, in turn bringing out their natural predators. The park is now home to a pair of nesting red hawks and grey hawks, as well as a flock of ravens, referred to as an unkindness.
Extending further into the park each year, other holes dug became home to new fruit trees for the area’s edible arbor walk. Peach and Barbados cherry trees are a welcome addition to the hand’s on learning experience, already featuring a wide selection of fruits and nuts, according to Marzec.
Alongside the Parks and Recreation Center volunteers stood 28 ranchers from Down Home Ranch, a local operating farm dedicated to empowering the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities through social, educational, residential and vocational opportunities.
“All of our ranchers are full of pride to be planting trees, every time they come back, they get to look at their trees,” said representative Kirsten Anderson.
The impromptu gardeners and families in attendance were also treated to other earthly activities. Children made bird houses, leaf pressings with the Elgin Public Library and rolled seed balls, thrown out in fields this time of year to help spread wildflowers.
On the edge of the Texas Blackland Prairie, Elgin’s soil is rich and contains a fair amount of clay. Marzec plans to continue taking advantage of this, where the park is only restricted by what they can keep watered, she said.
The Parks and Recreation manager hopes to eventually implement a better irrigation system.
