“Tree I hope you grow big and strong and have a good year.” – Needham third-grader

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An accolade elm sapling is sitting in its root ball in a hole dug the previous evening on the north side of Needham Elementary School.

Peter Schertz, a Needham parent and admitted tree-lover, stands near the elm among a group of a couple dozen third-graders and asks: “What do trees provide for us?”

“Oxygen,” answers one student.

Others chip in. “Homes for birds.” “Food.” “Shade.”

“Paper.”

“That’s a really good one,” Schertz says. “Where would schools be without paper?”

It might be hard to convince these kids that a paper shortage leading to no school would be a terrible thing, but the kids don’t pick up on that. Not today. They’re too engrossed in the tree-planting experience.

Schertz has no problem working them into a frenzy to shout out in unison the theme of the week at Needham:

“Trees are the answer!”

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“I hope you live long.” Zane, a second-grader, in a note to his class’s elm. Each of Needham’s 350 students has written a note on biodegradable banana tree bark, and the notes are being planted with each tree.

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Paula Mills, parent of a Needham second-grader, is watching with delight as the kids push and toss dirt around the root ball. The plan was to get kids to take ownership of their tree, and it appears to be working.

For the last week, they’ve been creating artwork, writing essays and learning the facts about trees. Durango Nature Studies’ Karen Hickerson taught students about the benefits of trees. All that learning has taken root.

“It’s been a really fun project,” says Mills, who wrote the $1,500 matching grant request to the Colorado Tree Coalition that really got the dirt flying. “The school, the teachers have gotten into it a thousand percent.”

It has been a team effort, with community leaders and businesses generously kicking in. It helps that trees are apolitical.

“The outpouring of support has just been amazing,” says Schertz, well-known in town as owner of Maria’s Bookshop.

As president of the Needham parent-teacher organization for the last several years, Laurie Sigillito has seen successful school programs, such as the read-a-thon that raises thousands of dollars. She quickly caught the enthusiasm for the tree project. “I think it’s a cool idea.”

Sigillito is the mother of a Needham fifth-grader and also owner of Durango’s FastSigns, and hers is one of several businesses that have donated. FastSigns provided a banner as well as the plastic markers that identify each tree and what class planted it.

The banner explains that the Needham Arboretum is dedicated to beloved Principal Pete Harter as well as the students of Needham.

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“Grow big and strong.” Grace, a fifth-grader.

“Grow big and happy.” Maria, also a fifth-grader.

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Each of Needham’s seven classes – prekindergarten, kindergarten and first through fifth grades – take part in planting a tree. The timing coincides with Earth Day (last Friday) and Arbor Day (this Friday).

Three classes have chanticleer pears, two Pacific sunset maples and two accolade elms.

Advice on what to plant, where to plant and how to plant came from the city of Durango’s Ron Stoner, described by Schertz as “the biggest tree-lover in town.”

Stoner, the city’s arborist for 25-plus years, was there Wednesday as overseer. His crews put four slow-release fertilizer tablets in the soil beneath each tree. He brings mycorrhyizal fungi to add to the soil; the fungi works symbiotically with the roots, Stoner says, helping them extend their mass and acquire more water.

Once the kids line up and throw handfuls of dirt on the root balls, Stoner, his crew and volunteers provide the finishing touches. They add mulch and pound in stakes with which to anchor the tree. Fencing to fend off deer will come soon.

If planting more trees in Durango strikes you as pointless, consider this: When the city’s pioneers arrived, Stoner says, there were very few trees in the Durango valley. As a 21st-century Durangoan, you have 20th- and even late 19th-century city residents to thank for much of your shade.

With each tree comes responsibility. All the students signed a contract stating they will take care of their tree for the rest of their lives.

The contracts are now part of three-ringed plastic-covered notebooks that will follow each of the classes as they make their way through Needham. They’ll make notes, documenting when the leaves turn or fall. They’ll take photos.

In each binder are calipers and a ruler to measure the circumference of the tree as it grows.

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“Grow as tall as the sky.” Needham fifth-grader

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Jeb Holt, Needham’s international baccalaureate coordinator, has worked with Schertz and Mills since the project’s inception, developing ways to incorporate the tree-planting with the school’s curriculum. The international baccalaureate program, which Needham is developing, is a way to teach conceptually. One of the pieces of that is taking action, and planting these trees is definitely action.

After all the planning, he is moved to see the project happen.

“Here it is,” he says with awe. “It’s exciting.”

Lindsay Gartner with the Colorado State University Forest Service talks to the kids about how a bark beetle infested the state’s American elms in the last half-century. The accolade elm, she says, is better suited to survive the fungus carried by the beetle.

She’s also an example of how a person can derive a career out of a love for trees.

“I get paid to walk around in the woods,” she tells them. “It’s your tree, but it’s for everybody.”

She cautions the third-graders not to touch the elm because the bark will rub off. It’s just to look at and sit under, she tells them.

Mills imagines the kids becoming grown-ups, moving away, then coming back to visit and enjoying the grown-up tree they once helped plant. To this end, Stoner ends his talk by extracting a vow from the kids gathered around the tree.

“You promise to take care of it?” he asks.

The answer is loud and unanimous: “Yeahhhhh!!!”

johnp@durangoherald.com. John Peel writes a weekly human-interest column.