A new pro­gram cre­ated to bring more trees to Howard County was an over­whelm­ing suc­cess with 2,010 trees reserved by res­i­dents in just 48 hours. County res­i­dents were allowed to apply for up to two free trees as part of the 2010 Trees in 2010 ini­tia­tive which began on Mon­day, March 22.

The pro­gram was insti­tuted to help Howard County increase its tree canopy which helps to improve air qual­ity, con­serves water and mod­er­ates the cli­mate. The tim­ing of the pro­gram was par­tic­u­larly ben­e­fi­cial to an area that was hard hit dur­ing this winter’s his­toric snow­storms with the loss of a num­ber of trees due to the heavy snowfall.

The incred­i­ble suc­cess of 2010 Trees in 2010 led Howard County Exec­u­tive Ken Ulman to sug­gest pos­si­ble future pro­grams, “since it was so well-received and the fund­ing came strictly from inter­est earned on our For­est Con­ser­va­tion Fund, I hope we’ll be able to do it again in the fall or next spring.”

Funds for the For­est Con­ser­va­tion Fund come from devel­op­ers who fail to meet forestry require­ments when they develop properties.

No doubt the suc­cess of 2010 Trees in 2010 will help Howard County con­tinue to be named a “Tree City USA” by the Arbor Day Foun­da­tion. At 20 years and count­ing it’s an award we look for­ward to win­ning for years to come.