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Arbor Day’s approach provides opportunity to volunteer or plant a tree

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SIZING THINGS UP: The Arbor Day Foundation’s Web site will help you decide which tree is right for your property.
SIZING THINGS UP: The Arbor Day Foundation’s Web site will help you decide which tree is right for your property.
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TREE TIPS: If you’re planning to put a tree in the ground this Arbor Day, you’ll find lots of helpful information at the Arbor Day Foundation’s Web site.
TREE TIPS: If you’re planning to put a tree in the ground this Arbor Day, you’ll find lots of helpful information at the Arbor Day Foundation’s Web site.
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EVERYTHING IN PLACE: You can get a good idea of where you should plant your trees on the Arbor Day Foundation’s Web site.
EVERYTHING IN PLACE: You can get a good idea of where you should plant your trees on the Arbor Day Foundation’s Web site.
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KEEPING UP APPEARANCES: Proper pruning can keep a tree healthy and handsome, and the Arbor Day Foundation’s Web site can help you learn about when and how to do it.
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES: Proper pruning can keep a tree healthy and handsome, and the Arbor Day Foundation’s Web site can help you learn about when and how to do it.
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ADDING VALUE: Interactive elements on the Arbor Day Foundation's Web site include an illustration that lets you click on different trees to see the value they bring to a property.
ADDING VALUE: Interactive elements on the Arbor Day Foundation's Web site include an illustration that lets you click on different trees to see the value they bring to a property.

Arbor Day is just around the corner, springing forth this year April 24. (The annual holiday always creeps up on the last Friday of April.)

Interested in volunteering to celebrate? Visit Arbor Day’s official Web site, www.ArborDay.org, and find a listing of more than 100 organizations – spread across 35 states and the District of Columbia – that brings trees’ roots into earth’s soil. They could all use a little help, whether through donations or via some old-fashion shovel shouldering.

As a representative example, we checked out a link to Bridging the Gap’s Web site, www.BridgingTheGap.org. Located in Kansas City, Mo., the organization is the closest mention on the Arbor Day site to our Topeka, Kan., office.

According to the Bridging the Gap site, the organization offers folks the opportunity to take classes and learn to identify trees and diagnose their problems. In exchange, participants can participate in community service. Folks can also help identify sites where trees can be planted – or simply give donations to help the organization fund its programs.

Of course, you might want to celebrate Arbor Day in a more personal way – perhaps by planting a tree in your own backyard. The Arbor Day site will prove helpful there, too: You can buy trees from the site, finding species appropriate for your area by entering your zip code. Select a species, and you can click a link to read more about it in site’s tree guide.

The site also includes helpful information for the tree owner: an interactive animation about proper pruninga breakdown of how varieties of trees can help your property, and nine things every tree owner should know.

Browse through some of the information graphics accompanying this article to get an idea of what you’ll find at the site, or head there directly.