Abington Friends becomes an Arboretum

Have you seen the blue tags on our campus trees?  AFS is becoming an arboretum!  With the help of three grants, we've raised money to inventory and tag 300 trees on our campus and on the Abington Meeting property.  The bulk of the money has been given by the AFS Alumni Class of 64 to create a "tree trail".  We have worked with Bartlett Tree Experts to create a database of the trees that records the genus and species, the location of the trees, GPS coordinates, age, health, and whether the tree is significant in some way. Middle School students, under the direction of Mark Smith, will be learning how to be "Tree Tenders" and will be helping to take care of the trees on the campus.  Last year, nine faculty members and members of the Meeting became certified Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Tree Tenders so that we could create this program for the students and become better stewards of our beautiful campus. The students will also be working with John Rison to create a web-based "tree trail" so that members of the wider community can learn about our trees as well.   The tree trail will be know as Tree Tour '64 in honor of the generous gift from that alumni class.