CINCINNATI — City of Sidney Arborist Joyce Reier and Mayor Mike Barhorst spoke about city’s tree sale Wednesday, Sept. 26, at the annual Southwest Ohio Urban Forestry Conference at the Symmes Township Safety Center in Cincinnati.
Their presentation was given as part of the focus on tree programs in various communities within Southwest Ohio. The presentation was entitled Branching Out: Conducting a Municipal Tree Sale Without Breaking Your Municipalities’ Budget. It detailed the steps that were taken in conducting the city’s first tree sale in 2017.
The inaugural sale offered six varieties of trees. Although local officials were told that given a community the size of Sidney, they should not expect to sell many trees, 300 trees were sold. The most popular variety was the red oak (97 sold), followed by redbud (62 sold), Norway spruce (48 sold), tulip poplar and swamp white oak (31 each sold), and the American beech (15 sold).
Reier and Barhorst detailed the step by step process used in Sidney to develop the program. They concluded their presentation by thanking the many people who had assisted with the sale, with the greatest praise given to Ohio Department of Natural Resources Urban Forester Wendi Van Buren and the members of Sidney Tree Board.
Their presentation was followed by questions and answers. The approximate 150 in attendance asked questions regarding specific details of the sale.
