Lower Makefield EAC reviews spring plantings, plans fall program and heritage-tree recognition

The Lower Makefield Township Environmental Advisory Council reported that its spring 2026 tree-planting program was completed with 165 trees and outlined a draft fall 2026 plan of roughly 159 trees to be reviewed with township management.

Jim Bray said the contractor provided a list of species substitutions and that he and Allan will inspect planting locations to confirm substitutions are appropriate, noting that some sites (for example, the arboretum) do not permit substitutions. He said the EAC will coordinate with township management later this month to finalize the fall plan.

Carly said the EAC’s volunteer “tree squad” will tag newly planted trees and hold health-check volunteer events on July 18 and 25 and Aug. 22 and 29, each from 9 a.m. to noon. The group’s goal is to tag fall 2025 plantings before July volunteer checks and tag spring 2026 plantings before August checks.

On tagging logistics, members discussed embossed metal tags and writable aluminum tags as options. Members cited sample pricing in the meeting (one vendor listed $21 for 200 tags); the group discussed tradeoffs between durability, labor time (embossing some machines require character-by-character operation; one estimate cited ~40 labor hours to emboss 150 tags) and cost. Carly offered to order an initial supply and requested that the township cover tag purchases.

The EAC also discussed heritage-tree recognition and a proposed short slide deck for the Board of Supervisors. Members identified candidate specimens (including the Patterson Magnolia, described in the meeting as an unusually large cucumber magnolia), and debated full-size plaques versus lower-cost options such as small ground plates or QR-code markers linking to online information. Bray said he will take photographs to assemble the slide deck and work with staff to place the item on a July or early‑August board agenda for an educational presentation.

The meeting closed the tree section noting the township’s tree‑bank mechanism, which the EAC said applies a dollarized replacement value (reported in the meeting as $450 per tree equivalency) and has accumulated roughly $800,000 for public plantings.

Next steps: field checks of substitution sites, finalize the fall planting list with township management, order a tag trial batch, and prepare the heritage-tree slide deck for the Board of Supervisors presentation.