Events

Oak Park is Illinois’ first municipal arboretum, with more than 18,000 trees lining its streets. Its Heritage Oak Propagation Program has saved hundreds of 200- to 300-year old trees and planted their acorns in local parks. For our October program,  a stellar panel of will present on the urban forest ecosystem. Learn about such topics as:

How to protect disappearing oak savannas, woodlands, and forests
Landscaping for healthy trees
Discovering Oak Park’s heritage oaks
The managing and maintenance of an urban forest
Adopting an oak

Free and open to the public. 
Presenters
Lydia Scott directs The Morton Arboretum’s Chicago Region Trees Initiative, a coalition of about 200 organizations working to improve the health of the urban forest for better quality life. She will talk about oak ecosystems from the 1830s to the present and how we can be part of a regional effort to preserve, protect and enhance them for the future.

Mark Duntemann is owner of Duntemann Urban Forestry and an internationally recognized expert in tree risk assessment and tree management policy development. His practice emphasizes management and preservation of trees with local cultural and ecologic significance. Mark will  describe a year-long project in Oak Park to map the large diameter oaks that are the remnant of a pre-European woodland.  The trees that remain inform an understanding of the area’s ecologic past, and, as importantly, the role of the community as stewards in preserving this dwindling population.

Robert Sproule is a Master Arborist and superintendent of Oak Park’s Forest Division. Previously,  he worked for the cities of New York, Chicago and the Chicago Park District. Rob will provide an overview of this urban forest, discuss the village’s current management practices and future plans.

Roy Diblik is a recognized perennial plant expert, grower, designer, speaker and author who specializes in sustainable plant communities for all seasons. He is perhaps best known as the plants man behind Piet Oudolf’s Midwestern garden designs including the Lurie Garden at Millennium Park in Chicago. He will remind us that plants don’t live alone in nature, yet we often “plop trees into a heavy clay hole and hope they survive.” Roy will discuss how companion plants can provide better growing environments, why wood mulch may not always be the best fertilizer and where sedges can be as effective as turf grass.

Give yourself time to visit the Art Gallery before the program. It features Trees Close Up: Botanical Watercolors by Barbara Rose.

The Oak Park Library opens at 1:00 p.m.

The presentation will be in the Veterans Room, which will open at 1:30 p.m. We’ll have table information on the Heritage Oak Propagation Program and more.