Bedford Township,
Michigan                                       

Bedford Beautification Committee 

The Bedford Township Beautification Committee sponsors a monthly "Yard of he Month" contest for all Bedford residents. To nominate your yard or a neighbor's yard send an e-mail with the name and address to the following: mailto:beautification@bedfordmi.org. In the subject line add the word "Yard". You will receive a confirmation within a few days.

Autumn Leaves

Autumn, such a lovely time of year.  Farmers' markets are loaded with end of the season produce, pumpkins are appearing everywhere, chrysanthemums and asters are ablaze in gardens, the smell of burning leaves is in the air.........  Wait, what's that again, burning leaves?  You've got to be kidding!  Burn the best, cheapest source of garden food and landscaping mulch around? 

Let's think about it.  Every year our trees drop their leaves.  They've been doing this for eons, nourishing the soil and the plants underneath them.  But we find that the leaves look messy and take a while to rot and besides, they could suffocate our grass.  So we scrape them up off the grass and off all our other plants and burn them.  But the grass, the trees themselves and other plants don't receive the nutrients and protection they would have gotten from the rotting leaves, so we pay hard cash for fertilizers for our grass, trees and other plants and more money for bags of ground up wood to protect, i.e., mulch, our plants.

Granted, this process is good for the economy, at least for fertilizer and mulch manufacturers, but not so good for our air quality.  Don't even mention the time and expense involved. 

How about a simpler, cheaper and more earth-friendly solution?  Rake out the leaves from your garden and landscape beds and just chop them up in the process of mowing your lawn, let some remain on the lawn where they will compost over the winter, and rake the excess back on to your vegetable, flower, and landscaping beds for a super nourishing mulch.  Before next summer is over, the lawn and beds will be ready for more chopped leaves because this year's batch will have been food for microbes and pulled down under and munched by earthworms whose "castings" will enrich the soil.

Okay, you will probably have to mow a little extra to chop up the leaves finely.  And the neighbors, who haven't caught on yet, will think you're a little nuts when you start asking them for their leaves because you didn't have quite enough to mulch the back perennial garden.  And then there's that business of plotting how to haul home some of those terrific mounds of chopped leaves along the Toledo streets because they could be the start of a new no-dig garden bed (you know, just pile 6 to 12 inches of chopped leaves, grass clippings and whatever over the lawn where you want a new bed, keep moist and by spring-Voila!-a new garden bed ready to plant).

After a couple of years of chopping and raking, instead of raking and burning, you too will join the ranks of folks who can't believe they ever let such a splendid resource go up in smoke!

Trees

This year, as in years past, the Bedford Beautification Committee gave away 1,800 white pine tree seedlings at the BBA Trade Fair, on March 16^th and 17^th.  We are also planning to continue adding/replacing trees on public thoroughfares in the township.  For their beauty alone, we believe that planting trees is an investment in the future. 

But did you know that trees around your home can add value to your property, reduce home heating and cooling costs, remove carbon dioxide and add oxygen to the atmosphere, provide food and shelter for wildlife and possibly reduce stress?  Here are some interesting facts from The National Arbor Day Foundation website:

·         “The net cooling effect of a young, healthy tree is equivalent to ten room-size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day.”—U.S. Department of Agriculture 

·         “Trees properly placed around buildings can reduce air conditioning needs by 30 percent and save 20-50 percent in energy used for heating.”—USDA Forest Service 

·         “One acre of forest absorbs six tons of carbon dioxide and puts out four tons of oxygen.  This is enough to meet the annual needs of 18 people.”—U.S. Department of Agriculture 

·         “Landscaping, especially with trees, can increase property values as much as 20 percent.”—Management Information Services/ICMA 

·         “In laboratory research, visual exposure to settings with trees has produced significant recovery from stress within five minutes, as indicated by changes in blood pressure and muscle tension.”—Dr. Roger S. Ulrich Texas A&M University 

Before you decide to plant any new trees on your property, give careful thought to placement and the ultimate mature size of the tree.  That 5 foot evergreen at the nursery would look great right next to the corner of the house, but imagine it devouring your home in a few years as it reaches for its destiny as a 40 foot giant with a 20 foot spread.  Or imagine that same giant requiring substantial disfigurement by the power company because it was placed under overhead lines.  The summer cooling effects of a shade tree planted on the north, rather than the south, side of your house will mainly benefit your next-door neighbor. 

Consider the growing conditions on your site and choose trees that will thrive under those conditions.  They will look better and be more disease and pest resistant.  A tree that prefers shade and moist, but well drained, acidic soil will never perform well planted in full sun and dry, alkaline clay and vice versa.

A wealth of information about tree selection, planting and care can be found on the Michigan State Extension website, www.msue.msu.edu/imp/mod03/mod03t.htmlas well as The National Arbor Day Foundation website, www.arborday.org. 

The Bedford Beautification Committee

Beautification Committee: The Beautification Committee is an unpaid nine member appointed board with each member serving a two year term.

Below are two PDF files containing information and a nominating form for the Beautification Committee's "Yard Of The Month" program.

Yard Of The Month Information

Spruce Up Your Business