Kingwood Garden Club donates and plants trees for reforestation project
The Kingwood Garden Club has given itself a mission: to reforest the community. To this end, the club recently held tree sales in November as part of its annual Reforest the Forest Project, in which profits from sales made are used to purchase even more trees, than the club of gardening then donated.
This year, 420 trees were sold, with funds enabling the Garden Club to purchase and donate another 140. With this event, they were able to return a total of nearly 9,000 trees to the Kingwood area since the project was conceived. In 2000.
Plants sold at the event range from trees to shrubs and consist of plants zoned in the Houston area, according to Kate Henderson, president of Reforest the Forest. The plants are bought by the Garden Club and sold to the community at reduced prices.
“The trees we have are from a local grower,” said Henderson. “And all we have is either native or adapted to this region.”
According to Henderson, the plants sold generally have significant wildlife value as well. She also said that over the past 10 years the community has had a much greater interest in growing their own food, which has helped her cause tremendously.
Since its inception in 1973, the Kingwood Garden Club has been an organization that has since sought to spread a greater interest in horticulture. Besides the Reforest the Forest project, they also organize special Arbor Day events, as well as frequent flower shows.
As someone who has been gardening for years, even before joining the Kingwood Green Club, Henderson is particularly passionate about the return of trees to the area. She says the trees planted in the early years of the project have since grown several feet tall, instilling a true sense of accomplishment into the Garden Club.
“Kingwood is called the livable forest,” she said, “but if we don’t put trees back, it won’t really be a forest.”
According to Henderson, the Garden Club has touched the lives of many people. Some of them, like those who have received plants or scholarships from the club in the past, often return to help reforestation efforts.
Like many organizations and businesses over the past two years, the Kingwood Garden Club has had to grapple with the effects of the pandemic on the community. Henderson said, however, that the changes they needed to make, such as fulfilling online orders for tree sales, made things more efficient than before.
“I just love to see how excited people are when they come to pick up the trees,” said Henderson. “We’re doing this a lot more virtually now. I post what’s available and then people ask me.
Henderson said that over the past few years they have been able to sell trees in just three hours. This year was no exception.
The Kingwood Garden Club hosts many events throughout the year. Further information on the Reforest the Forest project, as well as other projects and events organized by the club is available on their website.
