Forest and Nature

NORWALK - The woodchippers and cherrypickers weren’t the typical attractions at a spring festival.

But 5-year-old Emily McKerrow didn’t seem to mind, especially because this fair had a ride unlike any other. As her parents watched, Emily was hoisted high into a tree at Mathews Park yesterday by arborist Tom Reiner of the Almstead Tree Co.

“It was fun, because I got to see trees and houses from up there,” Emily told her parents after a descent not unlike one Spider-Man might make.

The event was the first Norwalk Tree Festival, a free-admission fair aimed at environmental education and stressing the importance of preserving and maintaining urban and suburban trees.

Sponsored by the Norwalk Tree Alliance and the city’s Tree Advisory Committee, the festival drew more than 500 parents and children on a sun-filled morning and afternoon. They came to enjoy an array of booths and demonstrations about tree care, as well as a concession stand operated by the Norwalk Exchange Club that served free hot dogs, hamburgers and sodas.

From a perch high in the tree, Bob Bociek, manager of Almstead’s Stamford office, talked about the importance of the festival, which many hoped would become an annual event.

“We want them to appreciate trees,” Bociek said. “That’s what this day is all about, that they don’t take trees for granted.

“We’re giving them a chance to get off their feet and get up in the air and to show them how it feels to be inside a tree and how things look a little different up here.”Ê

In addition to several tree companies, participants included the Norwalk Land Trust, Keep America Beautiful, the U.S. Forest Service in Hamden, the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Urban Forestry Division, Home Depot, Norwalk’s departments of Public Works and Recreation & Parks, and Connecticut Light & Power Co.

“We’re here to get the word out about planting low-growing trees near power lines and planting trees near your home for energy conservation,” said Doug Pistawka, CL &P arborist.

Loinsworth McKenna, a CL&P conservation clerk, said strategically planted, deciduous trees can reduce electric bills.

“If you plant deciduous trees toward the southeast and southwest of your homes, they will give you shade in the summer and light in the winter,” he said.

“Planting conifers in the north of your property will also serve as a windbreak,” Pistawka added, “and that will reduce your heating costs.”

Rebecca Nisley of the U.S. Forest Service’s Northeast Center for Health Research educated attendees about the dangers of invasive forest insects, including the hemlock woolly adelgid, which threatens the region’s hemlock trees and shrubs.

“In our laboratories, we’re looking for ways to stop the natural enemies of trees,” she said.

Nisley said the festival’s focus was “to get people to start caring about trees, not just the trees in their yards, but in all the other places.”

David Tracy, president of the Norwalk Tree Alliance, said the idea for the festival came from a $75,000 grant his group received last year from the Home Depot Foundation and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

“We decided that now that we had the resources, we should expand our outreach,” he said. “What we want to do is to increase the public’s awareness of the urban forest.”

Tracy defined the urban forest as the trees necessary to the natural environment in both cities and suburbs, such as promenades, village greens and small parks.

“If you look at a town of this size and you took away all of the trees, it would look like a wasteland,” he said.

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