SALISBURY — City residents that attended We Dig Salisbury on Saturday at the Miller Recreation Center got more than just a dogwood tree — they got a hands-on lesson about how to plant it.

Brad Gorman of the city of Salisbury’s public works department walked several attendees through the process of planting the new trees that they were picking up from the event organizers.

“I’d recommend you put it into a pot (before putting it into the earth),” Gorman said. “You can plant it today, or you can put it in a pot and let it get a little bigger.”

The trees were one of two options: “Cherokee Princess” dogwood or cornus florida and redbuds or cercis canadensis. The trees of each species being given out were about one year old.

Dogwoods can grow up to 30 feet with a similar spread. They are a deciduous tree native to the region that produce white blooms and red berries.

Redbuds can grow up to 30 feet as well. They are also deciduous trees and are native to the area. However, they produce a rose pink or purple color in the spring and their fruiting bodies are one to three each seed pods.

Deciduous means that the trees shed their leaves annually. Both species require full sun to partial shade lighting conditions.

As the crowd gathered around Gorman and his fellow public works personnel member Kenny Hayes, the former showed everyone how to prepare a tree for the hole.

“In our case here with a container tree, a lot of time they will be root bound,” Gorman explained. “They will be in the pot for a while so the roots will start going around instead of growing out, so they will make circles around the tree’s root ball.

“You want to go in there and cut the roots. You can take your finger or a shovel. It just depends on how long it has been in there. That stimulates them to put out new root growth.”

Gorman elaborated on the common condition of the soils that one will likely find when digging and planting in Rowan County.

“Most of the soil in Rowan County is going to be red clay,” he said.

However, if one starts to dig a hole and unearths yellow and grey dirt, then it might modify the approach.

“That kind of soil is not the best,” he said. “You want loamy soil that has some good work in it … If you have poorly drained soil, it stinks, if it has a lot of grey or yellow in it that is poorly drained. You want to leave your rootball up about a third of the depth so it’s not wedged in the hole. “

Gorman pointed out that if you do have normal dirt, the proper way to plant is to have it flat with the top of ground.

“(Then) you flat fill around it,” he said. “Don’t put dirt on top of the rootball. You want to make a drip ring, so that when you water it or it rains, it funnels the water towards the root.”

Gorman also advised against common planting malpractice that can choke the tree.

“You can put mulch or pine needles on top of this,” he said. “You just don’t want to put dirt there because it suffocates the tree. Don’t put your mulch real tall. They call it volcano mulching. The mulch will be way up the tree and that is going to start rotting your trunk out.”

Thanks to Gorman’s demonstration and the efforts of the event organizers, those leaders are excited about what it will mean for expanding Salisbury’s tree canopy.

Salisbury Urban Design Planner Alyssa Nelson added that the event served multiple purposes beyond the primary mission to build out that canopy.

“We have environmental education booths,” she said. “We have the master gardeners, Creek Week, Catawba’s Center for the Environment … We have a few other folks talking about native plants and just promoting education of the outdoors in general.”

The requirement to take home a tree on Saturday involved a tree passport.

“Everybody gets one,” Nelson said. “You have to visit at least four booths and it’s optional to attend a tree pruning demonstration with the public works guys or a tree planting.”

Once four stamps had been collected, the attendee was able to pick up their dogwood or rosebud.

Another plus, Nelson pointed out, “It’s also just nice to talk with your neighbors.”

Kelly Vanager Miller is the Salisbury Community Appearance Commission chair.

“I’m a chairperson in name, but I am a volunteer just like all of the other members of the (CAC),” she said.

On Saturday, she was in charge of the raffle.

“We are raffling off three fruit trees. We have a peach tree, a pear and an apple tree,” she said.
Other items included a Godley’s Garden Center gift certificate and gardening equipment.

Vanager Miller is proud of her role on the CAC.

“We deal with all things appearance related within the community of Salisbury,” she said. “It’s so beautiful. I love this city.”

With encroaching development changing the Salisbury and Rowan County landscape, Vanager Miller said increased attention to foliage is more important than ever.

“We are growing exponentially it seems like because of all of the people moving into the Charlotte metro area,” she said. “We have so many houses and different things that are being built that it is reducing our tree canopy because of the construction. This event comes in to help increase the tree canopy and enhance the beauty of our city.

“It’s a beautiful city already but with these flowering trees that we are making available to our citizens today will help to enhance the beauty of their yard.”

Vanager Miller acknowledged that there are problems of all sizes afflicting people, but she hopes they might consider the therapeutic qualities of gardening.

“Some people might say that there are other problems going on in the world, but gardening is therapy for a lot of people,” she said. “So when you can see the fact that you planted something and how it’s come up, and it’s beautiful, it helps with your mental health.”

With 300 trees to be given away on Saturday, We Dig Salisbury’s organizers are optimistic that it will have a big impact.