California
Five employees of Valley Crest Tree Co. in
Farmington
,
Calif.
, were killed in a head-on collision in December. Alberto Padilla, 35, was a 16-year veteran. Victor Manuel Reyes, 20, was an equipment operator. Daniel Gonzalez Lira, 22, was an equipment operator. Jose Miguel Lopez Gonzalez, 22, was an equipment operator and Gerardo Quiroz, 23, was a crew leader. The company established the Valley Crest Tree Company Farmington Crew Memorial Fund. Send donations to Valley Crest Tree Co., Attn:
Shanta Tiratsuyan
,
24151 Ventura Blvd.
,
Calabasas
,
CA
91302 . For more: (818) 737-2600.
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Michigan
Growers aren’t the only ones dealing with invasive plant issues. Meijer -- a chain of supercenters in
Illinois
,
Indiana
,
Kentucky
,
Michigan
and
Ohio
-- will donate $450,000 over the next three years to reduce invasive plants and rehabilitate the
Lake Michigan
shoreline. Meijer is removing Norway maple and Lombardy poplar from its inventory, while publicizing non-invasive species chosen by the Nature Conservancy. Plants, including purple coneflower, white pine and flowering dogwood, will be labeled with a special icon created by the Nature Conservancy. For more: (800) 543-3704; www.meijer.com.
Colorado
The combination of drought and hot summers during the past decade has stressed
Colorado
’s forests, making trees more susceptible to insect attacks, according to university researchers. The primary insects: bark beetles and defoliators. These insects are
Colorado
natives and have co-existed with their host trees for thousands of years. But warm summers may have accelerated bark beetle numbers, and mild winters allowed the survival of beetle larvae. There is no evidence to support the idea that current levels of bark beetle or defoliator activity are unnaturally high. For more: Colorado State University, Forest Restoration Institute, Bill Romme, (970) 491-2870; william.romme@colostate.edu.
Washington
,
D.C.
The
National
Garden
at the U.S. Botanic Garden (USBG) will welcome its first spring this year. The garden officially opened to the public last fall. The 3-acre site is adjacent to the USBG Conservatory at the foot of Capitol Hill. The garden is split into six distinct areas: The Lawn Terrace; the Rose Garden; the
Butterfly
Garden
; the First Ladies’
Water
Garden
; the
Regional
Garden
; and an open-air amphitheater. It’s free to the public and open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more: (202) 225-8333; www.usbg.gov.
Postcards
Squirrels have made big news lately. No, I’m not talking about Britney and
Paris
, but the darned cute little critters that drive my dog, Radar, insane. (Although one of my friends refers to them as rats with furry tails.) Researchers at the University of Alberta and Michigan State said red squirrels predict when a bountiful crop of tree seeds is about to occur, and they have a second litter of babies to take advantage of the extra chow. Maybe I should get a red squirrel to manage my 401(k). … 2007 may be the year of the pig, but Fleets & Fuels said it could be the year of biomethane. Technically, they could be one in the same. Biomethane is made from waste -- from animals, crops or municipal sewage -- and “not at all dependent on the fossil fuel markets,” said Fleets & Fuels editor Rich Piellisch. Read more about it at www.fleetsandfuels.com. … Don’t believe everything on the Internet. If I did, I’d have a serious identity crisis thanks to this Web site. Plug your name into the search field at ww2.howmanyofme.com/search, and see how many people share your name. I love to tell my husband he married an original, but this database claims there are ZERO people in the
U.S.
named Kelli Rodda.
Quotable:
“One of the issues we need to overcome by informing the public about invasive species is the idea that vegetation is always beneficial. We aren’t used to regarding plants as pollution.”
- Art Gover, a research/support associate at
Pennsylvania
State
University
.
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- Kelli Rodda
